Stylish

How to spell stylish

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce stylish

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does stylish mean?

1. adjectiveFashionable and elegant in appearance or manner.

Stylish in a sentence

• She arrived at the meeting in a stylish navy coat.

• The apartment had a stylish modern kitchen with marble counters.

Where does stylish come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built from 'style' plus the native English adjective suffix '-ish'. The base 'style' came into English in the 1300s from the Old French 'stile' or 'style', which traces back to the Latin 'stilus', the name for a pointed instrument used for writing on wax tablets. Because a person's handwriting and manner of expression depended on how they wielded that stilus, the word drifted from the physical tool toward 'manner of writing' and then to 'manner' or 'fashion' in general. The spelling acquired its 'y' partly through confusion with the unrelated Greek 'stylos', meaning a pillar or column, which is why we write 'style' rather than 'stile'. By the early 1800s 'stylish' was in common use to describe people and things that conformed to the elegant fashion of the day.

How the word is built

• styl- (from style: manner, fashion)
• -ish (adjective suffix meaning 'having the quality of')