designer
Americannoun
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designers
plural
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a person who devises or executes designs, especially one who creates forms, structures, and patterns, as for works of art or machines.
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a schemer, intriguer, or plotter.
adjective
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designed or created by or carrying a label or identification of a designer, especially a fashion designer, but often mass-produced.
designer jeans.
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created for intentional effect through chemical or genetic modification, as for a designer drug, or through crossbreeding, as for a designer dog.
noun
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a person who devises and executes designs, as for works of art, clothes, machines, etc
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(modifier) designed by and bearing the label or signature of a well-known fashion designer
designer jeans
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(modifier) (of things, ideas, etc) having an appearance of fashionable trendiness
designer pop songs
designer stubble
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(modifier) (of cells, chemicals, etc) designed (or produced) to perform a specific function or combat a specific problem
designer insecticide
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(modifier) (of an animal) cross-bred for a specific purpose, such as looks, temperament, or likelihood of causing an allergy
designer dogs
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a person who devises plots or schemes; intriguer
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of designer
Explanation
A designer is a person who plans how something will look. An architect is a designer of buildings, drawing detailed blueprints indicating what the structures should look like and how they should be built. The word designer came into English in the seventeenth century meaning "one who schemes." The word soon came to describe someone who figures out how something should look, especially something artistic. If you're reading a newspaper, a graphic designer planned how the text and images should look on each page. You might also be familiar with a fashion designer, someone who comes up with a vision for a garment and creates sketches to show what the finished product will look like.
Vocabulary lists containing designer
Occupations
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Engineering - Introductory
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Academy Awards, List 3
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Also opening a shop in the center is Pacific Palisades fashion designer Elyse Walker, who lost her 25-year flagship location on Antioch Street to the blaze.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2026
Still, the home failed to sell, prompting the musician—who is married to fashion designer Melody Ehsani—to slash his ask once more in March 2024, this time to $6.8 million.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026
Quentin Tarantino told Variety he had a production designer track one down for an opening shot of “Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood” at the Chinese Theatre before he rewrote the script.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
But continued growth will require it to demonstrate undeniable quality over cheaper fast-fashion brands such as Zara, and real value compared with designer labels.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
“But he loved that house. Remember the tour? The Chicago designer? The purple living room?”
From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx
Phil became an opera company and Disney an almost fullfledged opera house, staging Mozart’s three Da Ponte operas with sets by famed architects, beginning with Gehry, and costumes by edgy designers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
Olivia Rodrigo found her music festival’s merch designers on Etsy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
Canadian designers Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran founded the label after meeting as fashion students in Montreal.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026
As the company looks to unite designers, marketing and engineering teams, it’s also monetizing its growing user base.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
She had her robes made by Claude DeGlasse, one of the world’s preeminent fashion designers.
From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
