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.

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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

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Other Word Forms

Derived 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

In the ’40s, her great-grandfather took to wearing a zoot suit as an act of solidarity after hearing about the Zoot Suit Riots — and he wore it the rest of his life.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 13, 2023

His character dresses in a flamboyant zoot suit — complete with feathered hat — and uses slang drawn from caló.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 13, 2023

The sharkskin zoot suit is coming home with me.

From "X: A Novel" by Ilyasah Shabazz