designer

American  

[dih-zahy-ner] / dɪˈzaɪ nər /

noun

• designers
  plural

1. a person who devises or executes designs, especially one who creates forms, structures, and patterns, as for works of art or machines.

2. a schemer, intriguer, or plotter.

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adjective

1. designed or created by or carrying a label or identification of a designer, especially a fashion designer, but often mass-produced.

   designer jeans.

2. created for intentional effect through chemical or genetic modification, as for a designer drug, or through crossbreeding, as for a designer dog.

designer British  

/ dɪˈzaɪnə /

noun

1. a person who devises and executes designs, as for works of art, clothes, machines, etc

2. (modifier) designed by and bearing the label or signature of a well-known fashion designer

   designer jeans

3. (modifier) (of things, ideas, etc) having an appearance of fashionable trendiness

   designer pop songs

   designer stubble

4. (modifier) (of cells, chemicals, etc) designed (or produced) to perform a specific function or combat a specific problem

   designer insecticide

5. (modifier) (of an animal) cross-bred for a specific purpose, such as looks, temperament, or likelihood of causing an allergy

   designer dogs

6. a person who devises plots or schemes; intriguer

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• self-designer
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• designers
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of designer

First recorded in 1640–50; design + -er ¹

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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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

designer designers

“Not only am I not finding barf bags in the seat pocket, I’m also finding trash from prior passengers,” the 31-year-old motion designer from Atlanta said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

But hires such as Sühlmann, who succeeded veteran designer Michael Mauer in what the company called a “generational change,” have been the exception in Leiters’s tenure, which has been marked by deep cuts.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

Released in 1998 on the Nintendo 64, Ocarina of Time was the fifth entry in the franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary designer behind Mario.

From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026

His publicist initially told the Associated Press that the renowned designer died of pneumonia, but a death certificate obtained by Us Weekly paints a different picture.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2026

On Fifth Avenue there were entire stores devoted to just one designer, to sunglasses, to Nike, to the NBA, which of course Will wanted to go to and his sisters didn’t complain too much about.

From "Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story" by Nora Raleigh Baskin

That improvement means Roman should be capable of producing even sharper images than its designers initially expected, strengthening its ability to carry out detailed observations across enormous regions of the sky.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 17, 2026

Her podcast “You Must Remember This,” about “the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century,” has spent 21 seasons diving into the intricacies of the movie industry, from lauded stars to undersung production designers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026

That premise was handed to the designers at Uncommon Creative Studio, an agency with the likes of SiriusXM and Guinness on its client list, to turn into a visual identity.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026

Curated by former Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful, it brings together more than 100 works by nearly 70 artists, photographers and designers to examine a decade of creativity and rebellion.

From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026

Meredith, who’d been raised in St. Louis, was sharp and knowledgeable about different designers and had a playful sense of color and texture.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

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Related Words

• architect
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• engineer
• fashion designer
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• planner
• producer

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