knickers
English
Etymology
Short for knickerbockers.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈnɪkəz/
Noun
knickers pl (plural only)
- (colloquial, now US, rare) Knickerbockers.
- 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage 1993, p. 29:
- Students in the University were not permitted to keep cars, and the men – hatless, in knickers and bright pull-overs – looked down upon the town boys who wore hats cupped rigidly upon pomaded heads [...].
- 1946, Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, Really the Blues, Payback Press 1999, p. 77:
- He was a student at Notre Dame, a robust Joe-College kind of kid, husky and tall and always dressed in plus-four knickers.
- 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage 1993, p. 29:
- (Britain, New Zealand) Women's underpants.
- 2010, Sali Hughes, ‘Calendar girls galore’, The Guardian, 24 Apr 2010:
- The debate here is not over whether raising £26,000 (and counting) for our troops is a wonderful thing – it unarguably is – but over whether, whenever times are tough and money must be found, our default reaction as women should be to take off our knickers to help out?
- For attributive usage of sense 2 see knicker.
- 2010, Sali Hughes, ‘Calendar girls galore’, The Guardian, 24 Apr 2010:
Interjection
knickers
- A mild exclamation of annoyance.
Translations
a mild exclamation of annoyance
French
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kni.kœʁ/, /ni.kœʁ/
Audio (file)
Usage notes
- The singular form knicker is just another spelling for the plural form which may refer to one or more pair of trousers.
Further reading
- “knickers” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
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