WHAT DO “TROUSERS” TROUSE ANYWAY?

ETYMOLOGIES OF SWEATERS, SNEAKERS, AND PEDAL-PUSHERS are clear. Even skorts. But what of trousers? Here’s what I learned from Merriam-Webster, the O.E.D., the Internet, and other sources.

The Merriam-Webster entry is succinct: Trousers are “PANTS sense 1 → usually used in plural.” Of PANTS sense 1: “an outer garment covering each leg separately and usually extending from the waist to the ankle.” 

MW also mentions the adjectival use: “trouser role” in which an actress portrays a male.  

An Actress At Her Toilet, or Miss Brazen Just Breecht, a playbill by John Collet, 1779. Image from Life Takes Lemons. 

Trouses per the O.E.D. Indeed, The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary offers two distinct trouses. The first comes from the Old Norse term tros meaning rubbish, fallen leaves and twigs, possibly related to tras (Old Norse twigs and sprouts used for burning). 

The O.E.D. links our trouser-related trouse to the 16th-century trivds or triwds, either describing “a close-fitting attire for the buttocks and thighs (divided below so as to form a separate covering for each thigh), to the lower extremities of which stockings (if worn) were attached.” This trouse is also related to trews. 

And Thus Trousers. In total, O.E.D. gives two full columns to Trousers. Early on, it says, “See also STROSSER.” When we do, it reads, “… the relation to TROUSER is uncertain.” An O.E.D. red herring? No, the O.E.D. cites 1559 Shakespeare’s Henry V, III, vii, 57: “… and you rode like a Kerne of Ireland, your French hose off and in your strait Strossers.” This sounds pretty certain to me.

O.E.D.’s second meaning is similar to M-W’s PANTS, “a loose-fitting garment of cloth worn by men, covering the loins and legs to the ankles; sometimes said to have been worn over close-fitting breeches or pantaloons.”

Extended Forms. In discussing trouse’s evolution to trousers, the O.E.D. cites similar “extended forms” with pliers and tweezers.

Pliers, of course, are used by one who plies a trade. A tweeze is a bit more involved: It’s related to the crossword-puzzle favorite etui, a small box for storing stuff. 

Other Trousers. O.E.D. adds, “Hence Trouser v, slang, trans. to put (money, etc.) into the trouser pocket, to pocket.” It also includes Trouserdom, Trousered, Trouserettes (“girls ‘knickerbockers’”), Trouserian, and Trouserless. 

Trouserian reminds me of Wagner’s Brunhilde.

My kinda Brunhild, postcard by Gaston Bussière, 1897.

And isn’t it interesting that Knickbockers began as a nickname for old-fashioned Dutch New Yorkers after Washington Irving’s satire A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. Yet they evolved into baggy-kneed breeches and later got shortened—figuratively and literally—to British knickers, ladies undergarments.

You never know where etymology will lead. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024