Noun

(en noun)

A cause:

# That which causes something: an efficient cause, a proximate cause.

#* 1996 , (w), : Evolution and the Meanings of Life , page 198:

There is a reason why so many should be symmetrical: The selective advantage in a symmetrical complex is enjoyed by all the subunits

# A motive for an action or a determination.

#* 1806 , Anonymous, Select Notes to Book XXI, in, (Alexander Pope), translator, The (Odyssey) of (Homer) , volume 6 (London, F.J. du Roveray), page 37:

This is the reason why he proposes to offer a libation, to atone for the abuse of the day by their diversions.

#* 1881 , (Henry James), (The Portrait of a Lady) , chapter 10:

Ralph Touchett, for reasons best known to himself, had seen fit to say that Gilbert Osmond was not a good fellow

# An excuse: a thought or a consideration offered in support of a determination or an opinion; that which is offered or accepted as an explanation.

#* 1966 , (Graham Greene), ((Penguin Classics) edition, ISBN 0140184945), page 14:

I have forgotten the reason' he gave for not travelling by air. I felt sure that it was not the correct ' reason , and that he suffered from a heart trouble which he kept to himself.

(label) Rational]] thinking (or the capacity for it; the cognitive [[faculty, faculties, collectively, of conception, judgment, deduction and intuition.

* 1970 , (Hannah Arendt), On Violence (ISBN 0156695006), page 62:

And the specific distinction between man and beast is now, strictly speaking, no longer reason (the lumen naturale of the human animal) but science

*{{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-21, volume=411, issue=8892, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Magician’s brain , passage=The [Isaac] Newton that emerges from the [unpublished] manuscripts is far from the popular image of a rational practitioner of cold and pure reason . The architect of modern science was himself not very modern. He was obsessed with alchemy.}}

(label) Something reasonable, in accordance with thought; justice.

* (rfdate) (Edmund Spenser):

I was promised, on a time, To have reason for my rhyme.

Ratio; proportion.

(Barrow)

Noun

(en noun)

A set of clothes to be worn together, now especially a man's matching jacket and trousers (also business suit or lounge suit), or a similar outfit for a woman.

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=Foreword citation , passage=A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a plastic wardrobe.}}

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Revenge of the nerds , passage=Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suit ed men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.}}

(by extension) A single garment that covers the whole body: space suit, boiler suit, protective suit.

(pejorative, slang) A person who wears matching jacket and trousers, especially a boss or a supervisor.

A full set of armour.

(legal) The attempt to gain an end by legal process; a process instituted in a court of law for the recovery of a right or claim; a lawsuit.

(obsolete) The act of following or pursuing; pursuit, chase.

Pursuit of a love-interest; wooing, courtship.

Rebate your loves, each rival suit suspend, Till this funereal web my labors end. —(Alexander Pope).

The full set of sails required for a ship.

(card games) Each of the sets of a pack of cards distinguished by color and/or specific emblems, such as the spades, hearts, diamonds and French playing cards.

To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort Her mingled suits and sequences. — (William Cowper).

(obsolete) Regular order; succession.

Every five and thirty years the same kind and suit of weather comes again. — (Francis Bacon).

(obsolete) The act of suing; the pursuit of a particular object or goal.

Thenceforth the suit of earthly conquest shone. — (Edmund Spenser).

(archaic) A company of attendants or followers; a retinue.

(archaic) A group of similar or related objects or items considered as a whole; a suite (of rooms etc.)