business suit

noun

1. a suit, especially one of conservative cut and color. Compare suit ( defs 2, 3 ).

Word History and Origins

Origin of business suit¹

An Americanism dating back to 1865–70

Example Sentences

At a junior’s semifinalist event—adolescents attired like miniature bankers in pencil skirts and business suits—I correctly picked out the eventual winner, somehow.

From Time

He’d ditched the business suit and thick mustache I had seen in his Facebook photo with Giuliani.

From TIme

One early observer recalls him as “a square boy” with a “regular haircut and business suit,” but by December of 1961, his New York girlfriend Suze Rotolo told a friend that the Dylan she knew had begun to develop an “uncontrollable egomania.”

From Washington Post

A maintenance worker found Lewis’s body, sprawled facedown behind his desk, wearing a business suit, arms extended beyond his head, his wrists handcuffed.

From ProPublica

No cars were allowed on K Street NW, where, in what could be another lifetime, people in business suits poured out of high-rises for coffee breaks.

From Washington Post

A man in a pinstriped business suit approaches and digs into his pocket.

From The Daily Beast

She only learned why they were all running when she looked back and saw a man in a business suit with a gun in his hand.

From The Daily Beast

In foreign policy, Romney can look like Palin in a business suit with a cheat sheet of buzzwords, but hardly any substance at all.

From The Daily Beast

Kirkwood is largely uninterested in the idea of heels that will blend in with a business suit.

From The Daily Beast

Junior Evan Harrison wore a three-piece business suit to all of his classes.

From The Daily Beast

I don't see any good reason why I shouldn't wear an ordinary business suit under this magic royal robe.

From Project Gutenberg

It seemed that I was dreaming; that as I sat before her in my tweed business suit with its tubular trousers I was the anachronism!

From Project Gutenberg

"I want a business suit," he told the clerk who accosted him.

From Project Gutenberg

The Judge wore his usual dilapidated business suit of brown cheviot that had once been snuff-coloured and was now a streaky drab.

From Project Gutenberg

Coleman was a plump little individual in a conservative purple-and-yellow business suit.

From Project Gutenberg