Bespoke

How to spell bespoke

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bespoke

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bespoke mean?

1. adjectiveMade specially to a customer's individual specification rather than bought ready-made.

Bespoke in a sentence

• The firm offers a bespoke tailoring service for business suits.

• They commissioned a bespoke kitchen built to fit the awkward alcove.

Where does bespoke come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Bespoke is the past participle of the verb 'bespeak', which goes back to the Old English besprecan, where the prefix be- intensified sprecan 'to speak'. In medieval and early modern English 'to bespeak' something meant to speak for it, to arrange or order it in advance, the way one might bespeak a meal at an inn or bespeak goods from a craftsman. From the 1600s tailors used 'bespoken' and then 'bespoke' to describe cloth that had already been spoken for by a customer, that is, made to that person's individual order rather than sold ready-made. The modern adjective therefore preserves an old grammatical form frozen in place, which is why it ends in -oke rather than the regular -oken. Today it has spread well beyond tailoring to anything custom-built, from bespoke software to bespoke kitchens, but the core idea remains 'spoken for in advance'.

How the word is built

• be- (intensive/about)
• spoke (past participle of speak, in the old sense 'to speak for' or 'order in advance')