Etymologically
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trousers

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈtɹaʊzəz/[1]
  • US: /ˈtɹaʊzɚz/[1]

Etymology

It is an extended form of the older trouse, also trouzes (1581),[2][3][4] with an unexplained second -r- that probably comes from drawers and other words for paired things ending in -ers, such as pliers.[2][4][5][6][7] The older word is partly a variant of trews and partly perhaps borrowed from Irish triús directly,[2] the singular noun that Scottish Gaelic has as triubhas, close-fitting shorts;[2][8][6][9] the final consonant of the Gaelic word was taken for the English plural ending, as in breeches.[2][3] A Latin record from Ireland of 1306 has the form “trues”, which seems to reflect the Irish word as an English or Anglo-Norman speaker heard it.[2][3] The further origin is uncertain.[2][4][3] The OED suggests a Romance source related to Anglo-Norman trebuz and Old French trebus (late 12th century), from Old Occitan trabucs, from Late Latin tubruci (“leg coverings”), recorded in Isidore before 636, which probably goes back to an early Germanic compound of the words for thigh and breech, like Old High German diohbruoh (“loincloth, breeches”);[2][10][11][12] Isidore himself derived it from Latin tibia (“thigh”) and braccae (“breeches”).[11] Skeat instead derived the word from French trousses (“trunk-hose, breeches”), plural of trousse (“bundle”), related to truss;[13] the OED allows some influence from that French word, recorded from 1570,[2] and Etymonline from the verb truss, to dress.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A close-fitting garment of the Irish or Scots, like breeches with stockings attached, or tight trousers strapped under the feet: first in Beaumont and Fletcher's The Coxcomb, in 1612 according to Barnhart and before 1625 according to the OED.[3][2] Etymonline dates the form trossers to the 1610s.[4]

Semantic evolution

In early use the garment was thought of as Celtic: a writer of 1630 said that “A jellous wife was like an Irish trouze, alwayes close to a mans tayle”.[4] From 1681 the word was used of a loose-fitting garment covering the body from the waist to the ankles,[2][3] worn at first especially by sailors and later by soldiers; it became common in its present form from about 1820,[3] and Weekley dates the current sense to about 1800.[11] Johnson (1755) entered it as trouse or trousers, breeches or hose.[14] Later senses include loose trousers tapering at the ankle worn in South Asia (1773), the Latin braccae of the ancient Celts in writing on Roman history (1776), long frilled underpants worn by women and girls (1817), the long feathers on the legs of birds of prey (1854) and the hair on the hind legs of some dogs (1907).[2] The phrase to wear the trousers, to be the dominant partner, is recorded from 1841.[2]

Timeline

  • 1612 – trousers, close-fitting Irish or Scottish breeches.[3][2]
  • 1681 – a loose garment from the waist to the ankles.[2][3]
  • before 1719 – singular trouser, a pair of trousers, in Addison.[2][3]
  • 1773 – loose South Asian trousers tapering at the ankle.[2]
  • 1817 – long frilled underpants for women and girls.[2]
  • 1841 – to wear the trousers.[2]
  • 1854 – the leg feathers of birds of prey.[2]
  • 1862 – trouser, one leg of a pair of trousers.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. An outer garment covering the body from the waist to the ankles, with a separate part for each leg: He packed two pairs of grey trousers.
  2. Such a garment reaching only to or just below the knees.
  3. (archaic) Trews.
  4. The long feathers on the upper legs of some birds, or the hair on the hind legs of some dogs.
  5. wear the trousers: (chiefly British, informal) to be the partner who makes the decisions.

Word family

  • trouserless
  • trouser
  • trews
  • trouse
  • drawers
  • breeches
  • thigh

Usage notes

The word is plural in form and agreement (a pair of trousers); the singular trouser is found mainly in compounds and derivatives such as trouser leg and trousered.[2][15][7] Collins gives wear the pants as the American equivalent of wear the trousers.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  8. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  9. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press