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suit

1. The act of following or pursuing, as game; pursuit.

2. The act of suing; the process by which one endeavors to gain an end or an object; an attempt to attain a certain result; pursuit; endeavor. Thenceforth the suit of earthly conquest shone. (Spenser)

3. The act of wooing in love; the solicitation of a woman in marriage; courtship. Rebate your loves, each rival suit suspend, till this funereal web my labors end. (pope)

4. The attempt to gain an end by legal process; an action or process for the recovery of a right or claim; legal application to a court for justice; prosecution of right before any tribunal; as, a civil suit; a criminal suit; a suit in chancery. I arrest thee at the suit of count Orsino. (Shak) In England the several suits, or remedial instruments of justice, are distinguished into three kinds actions personal, real, and mixed. (Blackstone)

5. That which follows as a retinue; a company of attendants or followers; the assembly of persons who attend upon a prince, magistrate, or other person of distinction; often written suite, and pronounced .

6. Things that follow in a series or succession; the individual objects, collectively considered, which constitute a series, as of rooms, buildings, compositions, etc.; often written suite, and pronounced .

7. A number of things used together, and generally necessary to be united in order to a87 answer their purpose; a number of things ordinarily classed or used together; a set; as, a suit of curtains; a suit of armor; a suit of clothes. Two rogues in buckram suits.

8. One of the four sets of cards which constitute a pack; each set consisting of thirteen cards bearing a particular emblem, as hearts, spades, cubs, or diamonds. To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort Her mingled suits and sequences. (Cowper)

9. Regular order; succession. Every five and thirty years the same kind and suit of weather comes again. (bacon) Out of suits, having no correspondence. Suit and service See follow.

Origin: OE. Suite, F. Suite, OF. Suite, sieute, fr. Suivre to follow, OF. Sivre; perhaps influenced by L. Secta. See Sue to follow, and cf. Sect, Suite.