suite

American  

[sweet, soot] / swit, sut /

noun

1. a number of things forming a series or set.

2. a connected series of rooms to be used together.

   a hotel suite.

3. a set of furniture, especially a set comprising the basic furniture necessary for one room.

   a bedroom suite.

4. a company of followers or attendants; a train or retinue.

5. Music.

   1. an ordered series of instrumental dances, in the same or related keys, commonly preceded by a prelude.

   2. an ordered series of instrumental movements of any character.

6. Computers. a group of software programs sold as a unit and usually designed to work together.

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suite British  

/ swiːt /

noun

1. a series of items intended to be used together; set

2. a number of connected rooms in a hotel forming one living unit

   the presidential suite

3. a matching set of furniture, esp of two armchairs and a settee

4. a number of attendants or followers

5. music

   1. an instrumental composition consisting of several movements in the same key based on or derived from dance rhythms, esp in the baroque period

   2. an instrumental composition in several movements less closely connected than a sonata

   3. a piece of music containing movements based on or extracted from music already used in an opera, ballet, play, etc

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suite Cultural  

1. A group of related pieces of music or movements played in sequence. In the baroque era, a suite was a succession of different kinds of dances. In more recent times, suites have contained excerpts from longer works, such as ballets, or have simply portrayed a scene, as in Ferde Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite.

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Etymology

Origin of suite

1665–75; < French, apparently metathetic variant of Old French siute ( see suit); akin to sue, suitor

Explanation

A suite (sounds like "sweet") is a collection of matching things. It usually refers to rooms together, like when you get a suite at a fancy hotel. It can also be a set of furniture or a musical composition. In housing terms, a suite is an apartment made up of connected rooms. If you ever stay at a hostel in France, make sure you get a room with the bathroom en suite, so you don’t have to share the one in the hallway. When the word first came into use, it meant "train of followers of attendants," but don't call your friends your suite or they'll think you're a snob.

Example Sentences

The assistant, running on the new Gemini 3.5 Flash model, will be embedded in Google’s suite of products and run on its cloud infrastructure, the company says at its developer conference.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 19, 2026

“The main level features a spectacular primary suite, complemented by an upper-level second primary suite and four additional bedroom suites,” adds the listing.

From MarketWatch • May 18, 2026

And that afternoon Angela Rayner slipped into a London hotel suite to secretly pre-record a TV interview about resolving her tax affairs with HMRC.

From BBC • May 15, 2026

SAP is rolling out a new Autonomous Enterprise offering that combines an AI platform with an autonomous suite to help clients process their data and deploy AI agents to automate tasks.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 14, 2026

Sheehan stayed at his typewriter in the hotel suite, banging out stories for later in the week.

From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin

Related Words

• apartment
• collection
• lodging
• rental