Virtuous English AcademyClothes & Appearance — A2 English Vocabulary
This A2 vocabulary list gathers 30 elementary English words about clothes & appearance — fashion, style and describing people. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using clothes & appearance words in English
Clothes vocabulary hides three separate grammar problems. The first is that clothes has no singular at all. The second is the difference between wear and put on, which is the difference between a state and an action and is the same distinction English makes everywhere else with continuous and simple forms. The third is the trio fit, suit and match, which describe three completely different judgements about a garment and are constantly swapped.
What to watch out for
Fit, suit and match are three different judgements
Fit is about size: These jeans do not fit me — they are too small. Suit is about whether it looks good on you: That colour really suits you. Match is about two items going together: Your bag matches your shoes. Getting these wrong rarely stops communication, but using them correctly is one of the clearest signs of a learner who has moved past translation.
Wear is the state, put on is the action
She is wearing a black coat describes how she looks now. She put on her coat and left describes the moment of dressing. The opposite of put on is take off, not wear off. Dress is a third verb again: you get dressed in the morning, and you dress a child, but you do not dress a shirt.
Clothes is plural-only; materials use made of
There is no a clothe and no singular cloth meaning one garment — for one item say a piece of clothing or just name it. Jewellery is the opposite problem: uncountable, so a jewellery is wrong and the British spelling keeps the double l. For materials, either put the noun in front — a cotton shirt, a leather jacket, a wool coat — or use made of: It is made of leather.
Words learners mix up
Three tables: the adjectives for describing a person, the four words for how a garment sits on you, and the abstract nouns that a magazine uses and a learner usually mixes.
Describing how somebody looks
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| handsome | Good-looking, and normally used of men. Applied to a woman it suggests strong striking features rather than prettiness. | Her brother is very handsome. |
| beautiful | The strongest of the group, for people, places and objects alike. Not a word to use lightly about a stranger. | That is a beautiful dress. |
| smart | In British English, well dressed and neat. It does not mean clever, which is the American sense. | You look very smart in that jacket. |
| casual | Relaxed and informal, of clothes and of behaviour. Its opposite here is smart or formal. | The dress code is casual. |
Smart is the word that will cause an actual misunderstanding. To a British ear he is very smart is a comment about his suit, and the compliment about intelligence is clever or bright. The invitation phrase smart casual — neat but not formal — is standard on British invitations and puzzles almost everyone the first time.
How it sits on you
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| tight | Too close to the body, or deliberately close-fitting. The opposite of loose, not of large. | These jeans are too tight. |
| loose | Not close to the body. Said looss, with an s sound — the verb lose is a different word and sounds like looz. | A loose shirt is cooler in summer. |
| size | The number or letter a garment is made in. The question is What size are you? or What size do you take? | Do you have this in a bigger size? |
| zip | The fastener with two rows of teeth, and the verb for closing it: zip up your coat. | The zip on my bag is broken. |
British sizes and American sizes do not match, and shops abroad label the same garment with two different numbers, so size is a word to use with the country attached. Zip is British; Americans say zipper. And the loose and lose pair is worth ten seconds of attention, because they differ by one letter and one sound and appear in completely different sentences.
The words a magazine uses
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| fashion | The whole industry, and what is popular now. Uncountable, and lives in in fashion and out of fashion. | Fashion changes every season. |
| style | A particular way of dressing, and also the quality of having taste. Countable in the first sense. | She has her own style. |
| pattern | The repeated design printed or woven into fabric: stripes, checks, flowers. | I prefer plain shirts to a pattern. |
| appearance | How somebody looks overall. Formal, and it belongs to writing more than to conversation. | He never worried about his appearance. |
Fashion is the moment and style is the person, which is why she has style is a compliment and she has fashion is not English. Note the everyday British words for patterns — striped, checked, spotted, floral, and plain for no pattern at all — and that appearance has a second sense meaning the act of appearing somewhere: her first television appearance.
Collocations that sound natural
Clothes vocabulary is carried almost entirely by the verb in front of the noun, and the verb is rarely the one a translation offers. These six are the pairings you will need in a shop or getting ready to go out.
jewellery
wear jewellerya piece of jewellerysilver jewelleryexpensive jewellery
Uncountable, so it takes a singular verb and no plural: her jewellery was stolen. British spelling has three es and a double l; American English writes jewelry.
suit
wear a suita dark suita suit and tiea three-piece suit
A suit is jacket and trousers made of the same fabric, and it is countable. Do not confuse the noun with the verb suit meaning to look good on somebody.
makeup
put on makeupwear makeuptake your makeup offno makeup at all
Uncountable, and written either makeup or make-up in British English. The verb phrase is put on and its opposite is take off — never paint.
umbrella
take an umbrellaput up an umbrellaunder an umbrellaa broken umbrella
You put up an umbrella and put it down again. British speakers also say a brolly in informal speech, which is worth recognising even if you never say it.
beard
grow a beardhave a beardshave off your bearda grey beard
The verb for starting one is grow and for removing it is shave off. Somebody with one is bearded; a few days of growth is stubble.
ring
wear a ringa wedding ringa gold ringput a ring on
The word also covers the sound a phone makes and the verb for calling somebody, so context does a lot of work: I will ring you has nothing to do with jewellery.
Where each word belongs
Six garment words that come with a label attached — three are British forms an American would not use, one has quietly aged, and two are plural whether you like it or not.
- trainersBritish · pluralThe soft shoes for sport or for walking about in. Americans say sneakers. Always plural for one pair, so my trainers are new, and you count them as a pair of trainers.
- sandalsPlural onlyOpen summer shoes. Like trainers, shoes and boots, the singular exists but is only used when you genuinely mean one: I have lost a sandal. Otherwise it is a pair of sandals.
- blouseSlightly datedA woman’s shirt, and a word that now sounds like your grandmother. Younger British speakers say a shirt or, more often, a top, which covers almost anything worn above the waist.
- moustacheBritish spelling and stressBritish English writes moustache and stresses the second syllable: muh-STAHSH. American English writes mustache and stresses the first. The person is moustached or, more usually, just has a moustache.
- zipBritishThe fastener is a zip in Britain and a zipper in America, and both use zip up as the verb. British English also uses do up for any fastening: do up your coat, whether it has a zip or buttons.
- sleeveIn compoundsThe part of a garment covering the arm, and mostly seen inside compound adjectives: short-sleeved, long-sleeved, sleeveless. The idiom up your sleeve means kept secretly in reserve.
Sentences to try
Four frames that separate the three judgement verbs. Use them about clothes you own.
- These shoes do not fit me — do you have a bigger size?
- That colour really suits you.
- She is wearing a leather jacket with long sleeves.
- Her handbag matches her shoes perfectly.
Questions about clothes & appearance vocabulary
What is the difference between fit, suit and match?
Fit is purely about size and shape: if a jacket is too tight, it does not fit. Suit is about whether something looks good on a particular person, and it usually applies to colours and styles: Green suits you. Match is about two or more things going well together: Those socks do not match. So a coat can fit you perfectly, not suit you at all, and still match your bag. All three are ordinary verbs and none of them needs a preposition.
Do I say "wear" or "put on"?
Wear describes the state of having something on: He always wears a tie to work. Put on describes the single action of getting it onto your body: He put on his tie and left. A useful test is whether you could add a time — the action takes a moment, the state lasts. The opposite of put on is take off. And for the whole process of dressing yourself, the phrase is get dressed, not wear clothes.
Is "clothes" singular or plural?
Always plural. Clothes takes a plural verb — My clothes are wet — and there is no singular form, so a clothes and a clothe are both wrong. If you need to refer to one item, either name it (a shirt, a coat) or use a piece of clothing or an item of clothing. Note that clothing itself is uncountable and slightly more formal, and that cloth is a different word altogether meaning material or a rag.