Search

a prevailing custom or style of dress, etiquette, socializing, etc.:
the latest fashion in dresses.
conventional usage in dress, manners, etc., especially of polite society, or conformity to it:
the dictates of fashion; to be out of fashion.
manner; way; mode:
in a warlike fashion.
the make or form of anything:
He liked the fashion of the simple, sturdy furniture.
a kind; sort:
All fashions of people make up the world.
Obsolete, .
Obsolete. act or process of making.
to give a particular shape or form to; make:
The cavemen fashioned tools from stones.
to accommodate; adjust; adapt:
doctrines fashioned to the varying hour.
Shipbuilding. to bend (a plate) without preheating.
Obsolete. to contrive; manage.
after / in a fashion, in some manner or other or to some extent; in a makeshift, unskillful, or unsatisfactory way:
He’s an artist after a fashion.
noun

style in clothes, cosmetics, behaviour, etc, esp the latest or most admired style
(as modifier): a fashion magazine

(modifier) (esp of accessories) designed to be in the current fashion, but not necessarily to last

manner of performance; mode; way: in a striking fashion
(in combination): crab-fashion

a way of life that revolves around the activities, dress, interests, etc, that are most fashionable
shape, appearance, or form
sort; kind; type
after a fashion, in a fashion

in some manner, but not very well: I mended it, after a fashion
of a low order; of a sort: he is a poet, after a fashion

after the fashion of, like; similar to
of fashion, of high social standing
verb (transitive)
to give a particular form to
to make suitable or fitting
(obsolete) to contrive; manage
n.

c.1300, “shape, manner, mode,” from Old French façon (12c.) “face, appearance; construction, pattern, design; thing done; beauty; manner, characteristic feature,” from Latin factionem (nominative factio) “group of people acting together,” literally “a making or doing,” from facere “to make” (see factitious).

Sense of “prevailing custom” is from late 15c.; that of “style of attire” is from 1520s.

To call a fashion wearable is the kiss of death. No new fashion worth its salt is wearable. [Eugenia Sheppard, “New York Herald Tribune,” Jan. 13, 1960]

Fashion plate (1851) originally was “full-page picture in a popular magazine showing the prevailing or latest style of dress,” in reference to the typographic “plate” from which it was printed. Transfered sense of “well-dressed person” had emerged by 1920s.

v.

early 15c.; see fashion (n.). Related: Fashioned; fashioning.
Also,
after a sort
. Somehow or other; not very well, as in
John can read music, after a fashion
, or
He managed to paint the house after a sort
. The first phrase, in which
fashion
means “a manner of doing something,” has been so used since the mid-1800s, when it replaced
in a fashion
. The variant dates from the mid-1500s. Also see

in a way
(somehow) or other

see:

after a fashion
in fashion