pants: [19] Pants is short for pantaloons, a term used since the 17th century for men’s nether garments. The word originated in the name of a character in the old Italian commedia dell’arte, Pantalone, a silly old man with thin legs who encased them in tight trousers. English took the word over via French pantalon, and began to use it for ‘tight breeches or trousers’.
In American English it broadened out to ‘trousers’ generally, whence the current American use of pants for ‘trousers’. British English, however, tends to use the abbreviation for undergarments, perhaps influenced by pantalets, a 19th-century diminutive denoting ‘women’s long frilly drawers’.
trousers, 1840, see pantaloons. Colloquial singular pant is attested from 1893. To wear the pants "be the dominant member of a household" is first attested 1931. To do something by the seat of (one's) pants "by human instinct" is from 1942, originally of pilots, perhaps with some notion of being able to sense the condition and situation of the plane by engine vibrations, etc. To be caught with (one's) pants down "discovered in an embarrassing condition" is from 1932.
双语例句
1. He put on a pair of short pants and an undershirt.
他穿上了一条短裤和一件汗衫。
来自柯林斯例句
2. They knock around on weekends in grubby sweaters and pants.
他们周末穿着邋遢的毛衫和裤子到处闲逛。
来自柯林斯例句
3. He was wearing cotton pants and an open-necked shirt.
他穿着纯棉裤子和开领衬衫。
来自柯林斯例句
4. Waterproofed fabric pants are more expensive than plastic pants.
防水纤维短裤比塑料短裤贵多了。
来自柯林斯例句
5. He wore brown corduroy pants and a white cotton shirt.
