zoot suit

American  

[zoot] / zut /

noun

1. a man's suit with baggy, tight-cuffed, sometimes high-waisted trousers and an oversized jacket with exaggeratedly broad, padded shoulders and wide lapels, often worn with suspenders and a long watch chain and first popularized in the early 1940s.

---

zoot suit British  

/ zuːt /

noun

1. slang a man's suit consisting of baggy trousers with very tapered bottoms and a long jacket with wide padded shoulders, popular esp in the US in the 1940s

---

Other Word Forms

• zoot-suiter noun

Etymology

Origin of zoot suit

1940–45, rhyming compound based on suit

Example Sentences

Still, even Felicity was out-glammed by that night’s center of attention, Lee, who held court in Knicks-themed couture, a blue-and-orange-striped zoot suit with matching fedora and spectacles.

From Los Angeles Times • May 23, 2025

Elsewhere, we check in on how a freshly liberated Mitch McConnell is putting on his zoot suit and spats and living it up a little.

From Slate • Apr. 27, 2024

“The zoot suit was a very conspicuous look,” says Catherine S. Ramirez, author of “The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory.”

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 13, 2023

Calloway appeared in a billowing white zoot suit in the hit 1943 movie musical “Stormy Weather.”

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 13, 2023

Here I am in my zoot suit, thinking how country everybody looks compared to me.

From "X: A Novel" by Ilyasah Shabazz