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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.


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

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns

Etymology

Origin of designer

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

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.

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Vocabulary lists containing designer

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:

VEIR, a Woburn, Mass.-headquartered designer of superconducting power delivery systems for AI data centers, completed a $110 million Series C round.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

But former Puma and Umbro kit designer Rob Warner told BBC Sport last year that the economics behind shirt prices are more complex.

From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026

Fresh off the heels of Thom Browne’s New York Fashion Week presentation, where models and dancers embodied bugs and butterflies, the designer exchanged emails with Tyler Matthew Oyer about his creative process.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026

The market-leading chip designer owns roughly 10% of both CoreWeave, which went public last year, and Netherlands-based Nebius.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026

Sasha recommended a designer named Maria Cornejo, and I went to a boutique in Manhattan lined with her elegant gowns.

From "How Dare the Sun Rise" by Sandra Uwiringiyimana

"Our designers are just up the road in Leamington Spa, engineers from across the West Midlands and further afield," Davey added.

From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026

As the age’s potent mix of terror and delirium spun on, designers and illustrators proposed ways to live comfortably in space, underwater or in underground bunkers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026

You’ll need engineers and coders, but also prelaw and political-science majors to clear the regulatory path, philosophers and marketing majors to write press releases, designers, nutritionists, etc.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 4, 2026

Diedrichs said unless the designers prompt AI to show realistic or diverse features, "it's going to give you an image that defaults to the average" data set of the "narrow" traditional beauty standards.

From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026

The FTP employed nearly fifteen thousand writers, actors, directors, designers, and stage technicians.

From "Spooked!" by Gail Jarrow

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