bespoke
- 1Made or done to suit the needs of a particular person or group, such as a customer or patient, and so specialized and sometimes unique.
The firm builds bespoke software for each hospital trust it works with.
Every pair of shoes in the shop is bespoke, made to the customer's own measurements.
Similarcustom
Note
The adjective began as a past form of bespeak, "to arrange beforehand": a bespoke thing was spoken for before it was made, and the "custom-made" sense dates from 1755. It belongs mainly to British and Irish English and takes no more or most. Custom-made and tailor-made are its plainer near-equivalents.
- 2Describing someone who makes custom-made products, especially clothing.
The bespoke tailor took fourteen measurements before cutting a single piece of cloth.
Few bespoke bootmakers are left in the town, and their waiting lists run to a year.
Note
Placed before the name of a trade, the word describes the maker rather than the thing made: a bespoke tailor or bootmaker works to each customer's order instead of selling ready-made stock. The two uses travel together, since whatever such a tailor turns out is bespoke in the custom-made sense too.
- 3Past tense of bespeak.
The duke bespoke a carriage for the morning of the wedding.
Her careful reply bespoke years of practice in diplomacy.
Note
In the simple past it stands alone, with no helper verb: she bespoke a table for six; his calm bespoke long practice. It carries both main meanings of bespeak, ordering ahead and being a sign of something, and the object decides which: something that can be booked points to the first, a quality to the second.
Less common meaning
- 4Past participle of bespeak. Archaic; the usual form is bespoken.
He had bespoke a pair of riding boots, and they were ready by the first frost.
Every seat in the coach had been bespoke a week before the fair.
Note
Here bespoke is an older participle, used after had, were or been where present-day English writes bespoken: they had bespoke rooms at the inn. After were or been it is easy to mistake for the custom-made adjective: a seat that had been bespoke was reserved, not made to measure.
Showing meanings only.
bespoke is a form of bespeak
bespeak, verb: To be a sign of something, showing, indicating, or suggesting it; also, to depict it, foretell it, or allude to it. Full entry
- Forms
- bespeakbespeaks he/she/itbespeaking -ing formbespoke past tensebespoken past participle
- Spelling
- bespeak → bespoke: irregular (no -ed)
Practice
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Origin
In the sense “custom-made”, first recorded in 1755, from the earlier bespoken (c. 1600), a form of bespeak in its sense “arrange beforehand” (1580s), which is a prefixed variant of speak. Compare order and made-to-order.