suits

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of suit.

   The tailor pressed all the suits before the wedding party arrived.

   Several civil suits were filed against the company after the recall.

   Note

   One plural serves every noun meaning, so the words around it do the sorting. Tailors press suits, plaintiffs file suits, and in derogatory slang the suits are the bosses who wear them, a usage best kept out of formal writing. Compounds take the same -s: space suits, boiler suits, swimsuits. The identical spelling also works as the present-tense verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of suit.

   The revised schedule suits the night-shift workers well.

   A quiet life in the country suits him better than the city ever did.

   Note

   Here the -s marks a singular subject in the present: the schedule suits, a quiet life suits. Usually the verb takes a direct object with no preposition, so you say it suits him, never it suits to him. A preposition follows only in the older sense of agreeing or corresponding. That preposition is normally to, and in archaic use with.

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