Suede

How to spell suede

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce suede

What does suede mean?

1. nounLeather with a soft, napped finish produced by buffing the underside of a hide.

Suede in a sentence

• She bought a pair of suede boots for the autumn.

• The jacket was made of brown suede that stained easily in the rain.

Where does suede come from?

Language of origin: French

Suede comes from the French phrase gants de Suède, meaning 'gloves of Sweden', because the soft, napped kidskin gloves made fashionable in France during the early 1800s were imported from Sweden. Suède is simply the French name for the country Sweden, so the material is literally named after the place its finishing technique came from. English clipped the phrase down to the single word in the mid nineteenth century, keeping the French spelling complete with its accented vowel cluster, which is why the word looks nothing like it sounds. The leather itself is made by buffing the underside of a hide to raise a soft, velvety nap. That French origin is the whole reason for the tricky 'ue' spelling and the silent shape that traps writers who expect it to be spelled the way it sounds, like its homophone 'swayed'.

How the word is built

• suede (a single unit borrowed whole from French Suède, the French name for Sweden)

Words that sound like suede

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• swayed: Moved or swung slowly from side to side.