Swimsuit

How to spell swimsuit

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce swimsuit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does swimsuit mean?

1. nounA garment worn for swimming or other water activities.

Swimsuit in a sentence

• She packed a spare swimsuit for the beach holiday.

• The new swimsuit dried quickly after his morning laps.

Where does swimsuit come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, joining the native verb 'swim' to the noun 'suit'. The verb 'swim' descends from Old English 'swimman', meaning 'to move through water by one's own effort', a word with cousins across the Germanic languages. 'Suit' arrived later from Old French 'suite', itself from Latin 'sequi', meaning 'to follow', because a suit was originally a set of matching things that followed one another. The compound 'swimsuit' is comparatively modern, appearing in the early twentieth century as bathing for leisure became common and dedicated swimming garments needed a plain name. The spelling is straightforward once you remember it is simply 'swim' bolted directly onto 'suit', with no joining letter and no doubling.

How the word is built

• swim (to move through water)
• suit (a set of garments)