zoot suit
3
9.9
- noun
- /zuːt suːt/
- Archaic
:
traje zoot
- In the 1940s, many young men wore zoot suits to express their unique style and flair during social gatherings.
- wearing a zoot suit
- sharkskin zoot suit
- purple zoot suit
Examples
-
I've seen them with their zoot suits and two-toned Florsheim shoes.
Fiction book (1996) -
A green head the size of a pumpkin, a purple zoot suit, and spats.
Fiction book (1994) -
Let's, uh, put him in a zoot suit.
-
- Psycho, put that zoot suit on him.
-
And so we go out and we got on zoot suits, man, and we had ladies that trap with that big band.
-
Malcolm, out of uniform and dressed in his zoot suit, comes down from the Park Avenue station in Harlem.
Fiction book (1992) -
He changes one last time and appears in a wild banana-yellow zoot suit complete with a snap-brim fedora.
Fiction book (1994) -
A generation or two later, the zoot suit has been resurrected and reincorporated in low-riding style, presented as a unique and creative expression of Chicano identity.
Academic text (1990) -
He wore a plaid zoot suit with Broadway suspenders and spats on his black bluchers.
Fiction book (2002) -
The Mask, still in his banana yellow zoot suit and carrying huge sacks of money like Santa Claus, plucks those stray twenties from the air, one, two, three.
Fiction book (1994)
Synonyms
5
9.9
A men's suit with long jacket and wide, high-waisted trousers popular in the 1940s
How Flamboyant
- Archaic
3
9.9
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is compositionally straightforward: 'zoot' denotes a particular style of men's suit and 'suit' names the garment, so their combination directly identifies that distinctive outfit. Therefore a B1 learner who already knows the specialized meaning of 'zoot' and the word 'suit' would readily infer the MWE meaning; the construction follows a normal modifier+noun pattern even if the term is historically/culturally specific.
Etymology
Zoot suit may come from 1930s jazz slang: players used the playful sound 'zoot' for something bright and showy, and the long, wide suit was very eye-catching. That's why the name refers to a bold, high-waisted outfit and became a sign of 'rebellion' and 'style'.