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guise

nounverbnounattested in dialogue

  • //ˈɡaɪz//

A customary way of speaking or acting; a fashion, a manner, a practice (often used formerly in such phrases as "at his own guise"; that is, in his own fashion, to suit himself.)

noun

  1. 1

    A customary way of speaking or acting; a fashion, a manner, a practice (often used formerly in such phrases as "at his own guise"; that is, in his own fashion, to suit himself.)

    1924, Aristotle. Metaphysics. Translated by W. D. Ross. Nashotah, Wisconsin, USA: The Classical Library, 2001. Aristotle. Metaphysics. Book 1, Part 5. dialecticians and sophists assume the same guise as the philosopher

  2. 2

    An external appearance in manner or dress; an appropriate indication or expression; a garb; a shape.

  3. 3

    A misleading appearance; a cover, a cloak.

    Under the guise of patriotism

    Ought we be concerned that our rights to protest are being continually eroded under the guise of enhancing our safety?

    This was almost like a behind-closed-doors pre-season friendly in an international guise so it comes as no surprise that England lacked the sort of sharpness and inspiration that would have come with more match practice.

    But in the blink of an eye, you kissed me goodbye And the taste of your lips left me mortified They were cold, full of spite And under a guise You promised we'd both be dead that night

Etymology

From Middle English guise, gise, gyse, from Old French guisse, guise, vise (“guise, manner, way”), from Old Frankish *wīsa (“manner, way, fashion”), from Proto-Germanic *wīsǭ (“manner, way”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to see, view, behold, perceive”). Cognate with Old High German wīsa (“way, manner”), Old English wīse (“way, manner”), Dutch wijze (“way, manner”). More at wise.

verb

  1. 1

    archaicTo dress.

  2. 2

    archaicTo act as a guiser; to go dressed up in a parade etc.

noun

  1. 1

    Variant of guysDeliberate misspelling of guys.

    Sup guise? — What's up, guys?

Forms

plural
guises
past tense
guised
past participle
guised
present participle
guising
third person singular
guises
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).