Fashion

How to spell fashion

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fashion

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fashion mean?

1. nounA popular style or trend, especially in clothing, that is current at a particular time.
2. verbTo make or shape something, often skilfully or by hand.
3. nounA particular way or manner in which something is done.

Fashion in a sentence

• noun

  Narrow lapels came back into fashion that spring.

• verb

  He could fashion a simple table from a few salvaged planks.

• noun

  The meeting was run in an orderly fashion from start to finish.

• noun

  She built a career writing about fashion for a glossy magazine.

• verb

  The smith would fashion each blade by hand.

• noun

  He answered each question in a calm and measured fashion.

Where does fashion come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word goes back to the Latin factio, in its accusative form factionem, which meant 'a making' or 'a doing', built on the verb facere, meaning 'to make' or 'to do'. In late Latin and Old French the word softened into facon or fasson, carrying the sense of how something was made: its shape, workmanship, or manner. English borrowed it in the early 1300s, first meaning 'the make or build of a thing' and the way something was done, and only later narrowing toward the modern idea of prevailing style in clothing and taste. The same facere root sits inside a huge family of English words, including factory, manufacture, and even fact, all tied to the idea of making. The spelling trap is purely sound-based: the central 'sh' is written with the letters -shi-, and the ending is the unstressed -ion rather than a plain -un.

How the word is built

• fashi- (from Latin factio, a making/shaping)
• -on (noun suffix)