These words refer to grooming and clothes that are fastidious, elegant, well designed or in accordance with current taste. Stylish emphasizes something designed and executed so as to display a trend-setting flair for what is in vogue. In this it is close to fashionable , but is less formal, the minute standards. By contrast, fashionable emphasizes elegance, correctness and possibly a simplicity of expensive taste that is not likely to become dated so quickly: Leopard coats were stylish for a season, but mink coats will always be fashionable . Stylish is also more open to being used as a contemptuous term: elaborate hair-dos and other stylish vulgarities. Fashionable can be applied also to transitory or disapproved-of vogues: the sack, stretch slacks, the maxi-skirt all having had their fashionable , brief moment of glory. Fashionable , furthermore, is more likely to be applied to men than stylish: the double-breasted suit that could again become fashionable . Used of men, stylish is likely to suggest a specialized subculture when it is not openly contemptuous: the stylish , bowler-hatted businessmen in the City of London; the dirty jeans and leather jacket that are thought stylish among motor-cycle cultists.

Chic is in every way an intensification of stylish , except for its greater formality. Its French flavour points to that country as a source of high fashion for Western women, a fact emphasized by the word’s restriction to female grooming. If anything, the word suggests not only a great concern for the last word modernity, with a special emphasis on the exclusive and expensive, but also an acute awareness of what best enhances individual qualities: Her entire outfit was so chic as to make even the other fashionable women seem commonplace.

Modish sometimes concentrates on the negative aspects of stylish , suggesting a concern with vogue to the neglect of good taste, comfort or decorum: women who looked like colourless cadavers in their modish chalk-white make-up and silver lame dresses. By contrast, smart concentrates on a different aspect of stylish , referring to the dramatic impact of good design. Smart puts less emphasis on vogue than any of the previous words, and suggests instead the boldness of clean lines and simple cut, particularly those conceived of as being suitable for a specific occasion: her smart riding outfit. Where chic suggests the apex of femininity, there is something of the opposite in smart , although its forcefulness need not suggest mannishness. The word does tend to emphasize overall appearance rather than any one isolated aspect. Smart , of course, can refer also to comparable aspects of male grooming without suggesting effeminacy: his smart Italian-style suit. This versatility makes the word useful in joint descriptions: a smart , well-turned-out couple.

Dapper and spruce , by contrast with the previous words, are mainly reserved to describe aspects of male grooming. Dapper may indicate the last word in formality and correctness: looking dapper in his new dinner suit. More often, however, the word suggests over-elegant and even prissy grooming: quipping that he reminded her of the dapper little gentleman on wedding cakes. Spruce suggests masculine neatness and cleanness, with an emphasis on simplicity and timeless correctness of costume rather than conformity to fashionable vogues: sailors looking spruce and trim in their uniforms. Also, more than any other word here, spruce often bears directly on grooming to the exclusion of dress: looking spruce and clean-shaven. Occasionally, the word can refer to a woman’s costume; in this case, it emphasizes trimness and neatness: her spruce skiing outfit.