couture

Etymology

It is borrowed from French couture (“sewing, dressmaking”),^[2][3][4][5] from Old French cousture (“sewing, seam”), also costure (12th century),^[3][6][4] from Vulgar Latin *cōnsūtūra,^[4][3][6] formed from Latin cōnsūtus, the past participle of cōnsuō (“to sew together”), and the suffix -ūra.^[3][7] The Latin verb is formed from com- (“together”) and suō (“to sew”),^[6][4][3] from Proto-Indo-European *syū- (“to bind, sew”).^[4][6] In English it was at first short for haute couture.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Fashionable dressmaking or design: 1908, in Arnold Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale.^[2][4][3] Dictionary.com dates it 1905–10,^[7] and the Oxford Dictionary of English to the 1920s.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English in the fashion sense only, as the French haute couture, literally "high sewing", did in the same year.^[4][3] It was used as a collective term for the designers of women's fashion, especially in Paris, and for the clothes they made.^[2][4] Etymonline notes that it was treated as a French word at first and lost its italics in the 1940s.^[4]

Timeline

• 1908 – fashionable dressmaking or design, in Arnold Bennett.^[2][4][3]
• 1940s – no longer printed in italics as a French word.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The design, making and selling of expensive, fashionable clothes made to measure; high fashion.^[3][5][2]
2. The designers and fashion houses engaged in this business, collectively.^[3][2]
3. The clothes made by them; also used before a noun: a couture evening gown.^[2][5][9]

Related words

• couturier
• haute couture
• suture
• sew
• accouter

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
6. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press