a. Also † stilish. [f. STYLE sb. + -ISH.]
1. Of persons, their appearance or manners, also of dress, equipage, etc.: Noticeable for ‘style’ or conformity to the fashionable standard of elegance; showily fashionable.
1797. Jane Austen, Sense & Sens., xxx. A smart, stilish girl, they say, but not handsome.
1800. Eliza Southgate Bowne, Girl’s Life Eighty Yrs. Ago (1888), 23. I must either cut my hair or have one [a wig], I cannot dress it at all stylish.
1807–8. W. Irving, Salmag. (1824), 132. All who would be considered as admitted in the stylish arcana.
1815. Chalmers, in Hanna, Life (1850), II. 8. My lodgings … consist of a dining-room and bed-room, perhaps not so stylish as I could have wished, but [etc.].
1831. O. W. Holmes, My Aunt, 21. He sent her to a stylish school.
1847. C. Brontë, Jane Eyre, xxi. Her dress … looked as stylish as the other’s looked puritanical.
1851. J. H. Newman, Pres. Posit. Catholics, 16. They prowl about with handsome stocks and stylish waistcoats, and gold chains about their persons.
1883. Manch. Exam., 30 Oct., 8/4. A large farmer … attired in good broad-cloth of stylish cut.
1884. Lady F. Verney, Peasant Properties, etc. (1885), II. 250. But ‘stylish’ is of the shop, shoppy, and belongs to the dialect of milliners’ apprentices and waiting-maids alone … in England.
1884. Punch, Nov., 215/1. Rather stylish to have a double-barrelled name.
1902. S. E. White, Blazed Trail, lvii. Occasionally he might have noticed … a besilvered pair champing before a stylish vehicle.
2. In occasional uses: Having ‘style’ (in various senses: see STYLE sb. 14, 23, 25 d).
1892. Walsh, Tea, 86. An exceedingly black, ‘silky’ and stylish leaf tea.
1895. Daily News, 17 May, 3/7. Hearne was bowled for a most patient and stylish innings of 65.
1900. Athenæum, 7 July, 12/1. He has produced … a piece of lively and stylish writing.
Hence Stylishly adv., Stylishness.
1798. Jane Austen, Northanger Abb., viii. Her air, though it had not all the decided pretension, the resolute stilishness of Miss Thorpe’s, had more real elegance.
1879. Miss Braddon, Vixen, III. 230. Why should you … leave off dressing stylishly?
1898. Daily Chron., 8 Oct., 6/6. The plaintiff, a stylishly-dressed young lady.
