Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A staff of attendants or followers; a retinue.
  • noun A group of related things intended to be used together; a set.
  • noun A set of matching furniture.
  • noun A series of connected rooms used as a living unit.
  • noun An instrumental composition, especially of the 1600s or 1700s, consisting of a succession of dances in the same or related keys.
  • noun An instrumental composition consisting of a series of varying movements or pieces.
  • noun A group of software products packaged and sold together, usually having a consistent look and feel, a common installation, and shared macros.
  • noun A group of procedures that work cooperatively.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • See suit.
  • noun An obsolete form of suit (in various senses).
  • noun A company of attendants or followers; retinue; train: as, the suite of an ambassador.
  • noun A number of things taken collectively and constituting a sequence or following in a series; a set; a collection of things of like kind and intended to be used together: as, a suite of rooms; a suite of furniture.
  • noun A sequel.
  • noun In music, a set or series of instrumental dances, either in the same or in related keys, usually preceded by a prelude, and variously grouped so as to secure variety and contrast.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A retinue or company of attendants, as of a distinguished personage. See suit, n., 5.
  • noun A connected series or succession of objects; a number of things used or clessed together; a set. See Suit, n., 6.
  • noun (Mus.) One of the old musical forms, before the time of the more compact sonata, consisting of a string or series of pieces all in the same key, mostly in various dance rhythms, with sometimes an elaborate prelude. Some composers of the present day affect the suite form.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A retinue or company of attendants, as of a distinguished personage; as, the suite of an ambassador.
  • noun A connected series or succession of objects; a number of things used or classed together; a set; as, a suite of rooms; a suite of minerals.
  • noun A group of connected rooms, usually separable from other rooms by means of access.
  • noun music a musical form, popular before the time of the sonata, consisting of a string or series of pieces all in the same key, mostly in various dance rhythms, with sometimes an elaborate prelude.
  • noun music an excerpt of instrumental music from a larger work that contains other elements besides the music; for example, the Nutcracker Suite is the music (but not the dancing) from the ballet The Nutcracker, and the Carmen Suite is the instrumental music (but not the singing and dancing) from the opera Carmen.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a matching set of furniture
  • noun a musical composition of several movements only loosely connected
  • noun the group following and attending to some important person
  • noun apartment consisting of a series of connected rooms used as a living unit (as in a hotel)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Old French; see suit.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French suite.

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Examples

Comments

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  • I've noticed in rural FL that in common speech folks (and the adverts emanating from their small-company marketing efforts) confuse the proper pronunciation with suit; hence their "bedroom suit" pronunciation for an assemblage consisting of bed, night-stands, dresser-drawers, etc.

    You should cringe too - it stems from a lack of reading and a dearth of hearing proper pronunciation. In my opinion, it is not really a regional variant of suite by any means.

    January 13, 2009