accouter
verbUS /əˈku tɚ/
Etymology From Middle French accoutrer, from Old French acoustrer, from Vulgar Latin acconsūtūrāre (“to equip with clothes”), from Latin ad (“to”) + consūtūra (“sewing, clothes”), from Latin cōnsuō (“to sew together”), from Latin con- (“together”) + suō (“to sew”), first attested in the 1590s.
1
To furnish with dress or equipments, especially those for military service
- […] Ile hold thee any wager / When we are both accoutered like yong men, / Ile proue the prettier fellow of the two, […]c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv], page 177, column 1:
- Vpon the word, / Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 110, column 2:
3 more examples
- For this, in rags accoutered, are they seen, / And made the may-game of the public spleen?1693, John Dryden, “The Third Satire of Perseus”, in Walter Scott, editor, The works of John Dryden, volume 13, published 1808, page 235:
- Both while he trod the earth in humblest guise / Accoutred with his burthen and his staff;1814, William Wordsworth, “The Solitary”, in The Excursion:
- There is a leader—there is usually a leader when men leave their established perimeters—and today it is Quinn Davies, a tanned, open-faced man accoutered with artifacts of a Native American ancestry he wishes he possessed.2022, Jennifer Egan, “What the Forest Remembers”, in The Candy House:
- Derived terms
- unaccoutered
- Related terms
- accouterment