pantaloon

Etymology

It is partly borrowed from Middle French pantalon and partly borrowed from Italian Pantalone, the Venetian character of the commedia dell'arte,^[2][3][4][5] recorded in Italian from 1561 or earlier and in French from 1583–84, as Panthalon.^[2] The Italian character was so called because Pantalone was a frequent man's name among Venetians,^[2][6][7] after San Pantaleone or San Pantalone, the patron saint of the city.^[2] Barnhart identifies him with Saint Pantaleon, a Roman physician martyred in 305 and for a time a favourite saint of the Venetians;^[8] the American Heritage Dictionary gives his death as 303,^[9] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged calls him the patron saint of physicians.^[3] Etymonline doubts the link with the saint and suggests that the name, which is Greek and meant "all-compassionate" according to Littré, may have been chosen only because Greek names were fashionable for the characters of the early comedies of Italy;^[10] Klein and Partridge take the name to mean "entirely lion".^[11][12] In French pantalon was also the costume of the character (1585) and later a garment and long trousers (1790),^[2] and Italian pantaloni (“trousers”) (1799) is from French.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Venetian old man of the commedia dell'arte: 1592, in Nashe's Pierce Penilesse.^[2] Etymonline dates the character's name in English to the 1580s, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster to about 1590.^[10][8][13]

Semantic evolution

On the stage Pantaloon was a lean, foolish old man in spectacles, slippers and tight trousers;^[2][8][4] in the later English harlequinade he became the old man who is the butt of the clown's tricks.^[4][6][3] From 1602 the name was used of any feeble old man or old fool,^[2] a use kept alive by Shakespeare's "lean and slipper'd pantaloon" in As You Like It.^[4][14] The garment sense followed from the character's costume:^[4][10][8] from 1661, in Evelyn, pantaloons were the loose breeches fashionable after the Restoration,^[2][8] a French fashion that English writers of the late 17th century condemned.^[10] Johnson (1755) described a man's garment once worn "in which the breeches and stockings were all of a piece".^[14] In 1798 the word was revived for the tight trousers that replaced knee breeches;^[2][10][8] from 1814 it was used of girls' loose drawers,^[2] while from 1834, chiefly in the United States, of trousers in general,^[2][5] a use Barnhart thinks may have been taken again from French.^[8] The shortened pants is recorded by 1840 and the diminutive pantalettes by 1834.^[10][8]

Timeline

• 1592 – Pantaloon, the old Venetian of the commedia dell'arte.^[2]
• 1602 – a feeble old man, an old fool.^[2]
• 1661 – plural, the loose breeches of the Restoration period.^[2][8]
• 1686 – long baggy trousers worn in the Middle East and Asia.^[2]
• 1696 – tight trousers covering the feet, like those of the stage Pantaloon (obsolete by 1834).^[2]
• 1798 – tight trousers fastened below the calf or strapped under the boots.^[2][10]
• 1814 – loose drawers worn under the skirts by girls and women.^[2]
• 1834 – chiefly American, trousers in general.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (theatre) Usually Pantaloon: the lean, foolish old Venetian merchant of the commedia dell'arte, with spectacles and slippers.^[6][3][4][2]
2. (theatre) In pantomime and the harlequinade, a foolish old man who is the butt of the clown's tricks.^[6][3][4]
3. pantaloons: tight trousers fastened under the instep, worn by men in the late 18th and the 19th centuries.^{[6][13][9][2]}
4. pantaloons: the wide breeches worn by men in England after the Restoration.^[13][9][2]
5. pantaloons: trousers of any kind, especially baggy ones; often humorous: He turned up in a pair of red pantaloons.^[6][9][2]
6. (obsolete) A feeble old man; a dotard.^[3][4][2]

Related words

• pants
• pantalettes

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
13. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.