Trousers
nounAn item of clothing that covers the body from the waist down, with a separate part for each leg.
How to spell trousers
8 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce trousers
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does trousers mean?
- nounAn item of clothing that covers the body from the waist down, with a separate part for each leg.
Trousers in a sentence
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He ironed a sharp crease into his work trousers.
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The tailor shortened the trousers by two centimetres.
Where does trousers come from?
Language of origin: Celtic
Trousers traces back to the Scottish and Irish Gaelic word 'triubhas', meaning close-fitting breeches or shorts that covered the leg, the same garment we still call 'trews' today. English borrowed this in the 1500s as the singular 'trouse', describing a single such legging. By the 1600s an extra '-er' had crept in, almost certainly by analogy with other paired clothing words like 'drawers' and 'hose', giving 'trouser', and because the garment naturally comes as a pair it settled into the plural 'trousers'. The spelling trap lives in that unstressed middle: the '-ou-' sounds like the 'ow' in 'cow', and the ending is '-sers' rather than the '-zers' your ear expects. Keeping the Gaelic 'trous-' root in mind helps you remember the 's' before the final '-ers'.
How the word is built
- trouser (from earlier 'trouse', via Gaelic triubhas: close-fitting breeches)
- -s (plural)
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