FASHIONABLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does fashionable mean? 

• FASHIONABLE (adjective)
  The adjective FASHIONABLE has 3 senses:

1. being or in accordance with current social fashions

2. having elegance or taste or refinement in manners or dress

3. popular and considered appealing or fashionable at the time

  Familiarity information: FASHIONABLE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FASHIONABLE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Being or in accordance with current social fashions

Synonyms:

fashionable; stylish

Context example:

a fashionable cafe

Similar:

cool (fashionable and attractive at the time; often skilled or socially adept)

trendy; voguish (in accord with the latest fad)

trend-setting; trendsetting (initiating or popularizing a trend)

swank; swanky (imposingly fashionable and elegant)

old-time; olde worlde; quaint (attractively old-fashioned (but not necessarily authentic))

mod; modern; modernistic (relating to a recently developed fashion or style)

cutting-edge; up-to-date; up to date; with-it (in accord with the most fashionable ideas or style)

in (currently fashionable)

groovy; swagger ((British informal) very chic)

faddish; faddy (intensely fashionable for a short time)

dapper; dashing; jaunty; natty; raffish; rakish; snappy; spiffy; spruce (marked by up-to-dateness in dress and manners)

a la mode; in style; in vogue; latest; modish (in the current fashion or style)

Antonym:

unfashionable (not in accord with or not following current fashion)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Having elegance or taste or refinement in manners or dress

Synonyms:

fashionable; stylish

Context example:

the stylish resort of Gstadd

Similar:

chic; smart; voguish (elegant and stylish)

chichi (affectedly trendy and fashionable)

classy; posh; swish (elegant and fashionable)

snazzy (flashily stylish)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Popular and considered appealing or fashionable at the time

Synonyms:

fashionable; in fashion

Similar:

popular (regarded with great favor, approval, or affection especially by the general public)

 Context examples 

The girls do care for me, and I for them, and there's a great deal of kindness and sense and talent among them, in spite of what you call fashionable nonsense.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I had remained behind, for, indeed, I had already made up my mind that I had no calling for this fashionable life.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I have known it very fashionable indeed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

They had not remained in this manner long, before Elinor perceived Willoughby, standing within a few yards of them, in earnest conversation with a very fashionable looking young woman.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

She is only nursing Mrs Wallis of Marlborough Buildings; a mere pretty, silly, expensive, fashionable woman, I believe; and of course will have nothing to report but of lace and finery.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

It is the influence of the fashionable world altogether that I am jealous of.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

“Here is a very fashionable epistle,” I remarked as he entered.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He is a bulky, bearded, sunburned fellow, who looks as if he would be more at home in a farmers’ inn than in a fashionable hotel.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was interested, and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the Honourable Ronald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable circumstances.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He agreed to it, but with so quiet a Yes, as inclined her almost to doubt his real concurrence; and yet there must be a very distinct sort of elegance for the fashionable world, if Jane Fairfax could be thought only ordinarily gifted with it.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)