Designer

How to spell designer

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce designer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does designer mean?

1. nounA person who plans the form, look or function of something before it is made.
2. adjectiveMade by a famous fashion house or named creator, and usually expensive.

Designer in a sentence

• noun

  The designer presented three logo concepts to the marketing team.

• adjective

  She saved for months to buy a single designer handbag.

• noun

  Our lead designer chose a calmer colour scheme for the new app.

• adjective

  The boutique sells designer shoes at heavily reduced prices.

Where does designer come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb designare, meaning 'to mark out' or 'to point out', which was built from the prefix de- (here meaning 'out' or 'down') and signum, the everyday Latin word for a 'mark' or 'sign'. The verb 'design' arrived in English in the 1500s by way of French and the related Latin forms, carrying the sense of planning or marking something out before making it. Adding the familiar agent suffix -er produced 'designer', a label for the person who does the designing, recorded from the 1600s onward. The same signum root sits inside a whole family of English words, including 'signal', 'signature' and 'assign', which is a useful reminder that the silent g in 'design' and 'designer' is genuine and inherited, not a stray letter. By the twentieth century the word also began doing duty as an adjective, as in 'designer clothing', to flag something created by a named, fashionable maker.

How the word is built

• de- (down, out)
• sign (from Latin signum: mark, sign)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)