fashion
- a prevailing custom or style of dress, etiquette, socializing, etc.: the latest fashion in dresses.
- conventional usage in dress, manners, etc., especially of polite society, or conformity to it: the dictates of fashion; to be out of fashion.
- manner; way; mode: in a warlike fashion.
- the make or form of anything: He liked the fashion of the simple, sturdy furniture.
- a kind; sort: All fashions of people make up the world.
- Obsolete. workmanship.
- Obsolete. act or process of making.
- to give a particular shape or form to; make: The cavemen fashioned tools from stones.
- to accommodate; adjust; adapt: doctrines fashioned to the varying hour.
- Shipbuilding. to bend (a plate) without preheating.
- Obsolete. to contrive; manage.
- after/in a fashion, in some manner or other or to some extent; in a makeshift, unskillful, or unsatisfactory way: He's an artist after a fashion.
Origin of fashion
Synonyms
See more synonyms for fashion on Thesaurus.comfashion
- style in clothes, cosmetics, behaviour, etc, esp the latest or most admired style
- (as modifier)a fashion magazine
- (modifier) (esp of accessories) designed to be in the current fashion, but not necessarily to last
- manner of performance; mode; wayin a striking fashion
- (in combination)crab-fashion
- a way of life that revolves around the activities, dress, interests, etc, that are most fashionable
- shape, appearance, or form
- sort; kind; type
- after a fashion or in a fashion
- in some manner, but not very wellI mended it, after a fashion
- of a low order; of a sorthe is a poet, after a fashion
- after the fashion of like; similar to
- of fashion of high social standing
- to give a particular form to
- to make suitable or fitting
- obsolete to contrive; manage
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for after a fashion
fashion
n.
c.1300, "shape, manner, mode," from Old French façon (12c.) "face, appearance; construction, pattern, design; thing done; beauty; manner, characteristic feature," from Latin factionem (nominative factio) "group of people acting together," literally "a making or doing," from facere "to make" (see factitious).
Sense of "prevailing custom" is from late 15c.; that of "style of attire" is from 1520s.
To call a fashion wearable is the kiss of death. No new fashion worth its salt is wearable. [Eugenia Sheppard, "New York Herald Tribune," Jan. 13, 1960]
Fashion plate (1851) originally was "full-page picture in a popular magazine showing the prevailing or latest style of dress," in reference to the typographic "plate" from which it was printed. Transfered sense of "well-dressed person" had emerged by 1920s.
fashion
v.
early 15c.; see fashion (n.). Related: Fashioned; fashioning.
Idioms and Phrases with after a fashion
after a fashion
Also, after a sort. Somehow or other; not very well, as in John can read music, after a fashion, or He managed to paint the house after a sort. The first phrase, in which fashion means “a manner of doing something,” has been so used since the mid-1800s, when it replaced in a fashion. The variant dates from the mid-1500s. Also see in a way; (somehow) or other.
fashion
see after a fashion; in fashion.