fitting

Pluralfittings

1. 1
   adjective

   Appropriate and suitable for a particular situation or occasion.

   It seemed fitting that the oldest member spoke first.

   The committee picked a fitting tribute for the late founder.

   Similarappropriate, suitable, apt, proper, befitting

   Oppositeinappropriate, unsuitable, improper, unfitting

   Note

   Two frames carry most of its weight. It sits before nouns of occasion and tribute (a fitting send-off, a fitting scoreline), and it appears in the impersonal it is fitting that…, which takes should in Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764). It compares with more and most, not -er and -est. Condign is a rarer, more learned synonym.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of trying on clothes so the fit can be checked or adjusted.

   During the fitting, the seamstress pinned the hem an inch higher.

   The actor stood patiently through a long costume fitting.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A small, often standardized or detachable part of a device or machine.

   Each fitting screwed neatly into its socket on the panel.

   The kit included brass fittings for several different appliances.

   Similarpart, component, attachment, accessory, fixture

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A standardized connecting part used to join sections of pipe together, such as a coupling.

   Each fitting must match the pipe's diameter to seal properly.

   The engineer specified brass fittings throughout the system.

   Similarconnector, coupling, joint

   Note

   In engineering the word narrows to the joints of a pipe run: couplings, elbows, tees and unions. Standardization is what makes something a fitting rather than just a part. It is made to defined dimensions, so that pieces join and seal reliably under pressure. The material is usually named in front of it (brass fittings), and the word is narrower than the general machine part.

5. 5
   verbcolloquialUSintransitivewith infinitive

   Getting ready or preparing to do something.

   They were fitting to head home when the storm rolled in.

   He's fitting to ask for a raise next week.

   Similarpreparing, planning, fixing, aiming

   Note

   An informal American use that always takes a to-infinitive: fitting to go, fitting to leave. It is far from new slang. Emily Dickinson wrote in an 1846 letter that she was "fitting to go to South Hadley Seminary." Keep it apart from the adjective 'appropriate'. "It is fitting to go" means going is proper, while "I'm fitting to go" means I am getting ready to leave.

6. 6
   verb

   Present participle of fit.

   The mechanic is fitting a replacement part to the engine.

   She spent the afternoon fitting all her books onto one small shelf.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every sense of the verb, from size and shape (the lid is not fitting) to suitability (a punishment fitting the crime). Some uses take an object and some do not. A tailor is fitting a suit, but a box is simply fitting under the bed. The same spelling, built from fit plus -ing, also serves as the adjective meaning 'appropriate' and as several nouns.

7. 7
   nounBritishcountable or uncountable

   A removable item in a building, such as furniture, a carpet, or a picture, that can be taken away when one moves out.

   The landlord charged them for a fitting missing from the spare room.

   All the fittings, including the bookshelves and rugs, went into the removal van.

   Similarfurnishing, chattel

   Oppositefixture

   Note

   A chiefly British property word, usually plural, defined by what leaves with the occupant. Its partner is fixture, the thing attached to the building that stays behind, and the two are often named together as fixtures and fittings. American English tends to say furnishings instead. The word reaches beyond the home too, as in the fittings of a church or study.

8. 8
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The process of fitting up, especially the use of craft skills such as filing to make and assemble machines or other products.

   Final fitting required careful filing of each component.

   The apprentice spent a year learning machine fitting.

   Similarassembly

   Note

   Workshop language for the hand finishing that makes machined parts actually go together. Components are filed, scraped and reamed until they mate to tolerance. The word lives in phrases such as machine fitting and in the verb phrase fit up. It names a process and a skill rather than an object, which keeps it distinct from the part itself.

9. 9
   noununcountable

   The condition of having seizures or convulsions, or an episode in which they occur.

   The nurse recorded each episode of fitting on the patient's chart.

   Prolonged fitting can deprive the brain of oxygen.

   Similarseizing

   Note

   A medical mass noun built on fit in the sense of a seizure, not the fit of clothes or of suitability. It is uncountable. One speaks of fitting getting worse, or of episodes of fitting, never of "a fitting." That grammar is the quickest way to tell it from the tailor's fitting, which counts.

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