blue jeans
Americannoun
Usage
What are blue jeans? Blue jeans are a type of pants traditionally made from denim (a kind of cotton fabric). Blue jeans are commonly just called jeans. Jeans can be other colors, but they’re most commonly blue. The defining feature of most jeans is that they’re made out of some kind of denim or denim-like fabric. Most jeans have seams and pockets that are reinforced with rivets—small metal fasteners. The word jeans can technically be used to refer to pants made from other materials, such as corduroy, but this isn’t common. For example, pants made out of corduroy are commonly called corduroys. Blue jeans were originally worn as pants for rugged work, but they are now most commonly worn as casual attire. Like the words pants and trousers, jeans is always used in the plural form when referring to the pants. The word jean (without an s at the end) can be used to refer to the material and is typically used as a modifier to describe garments that are made of this material, as in jean jacket or jean shorts. Example: I love being able to wear blue jeans to work on casual Fridays.
Etymology
Origin of blue jeans
First recorded in 1850–55
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Wearing blue jeans and a pink button-down blouse, she echoed the pastel blues and pinks that appear throughout many of the works surrounding her.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2026
When last seen, he was wearing a black jacket with a red hood, or red hood lining, and blue jeans.
From BBC ● Apr. 19, 2026
At a time when American blue jeans and rock ’n’ roll were officially banned in the Soviet Union, Pepsi became the first U.S. consumer product broadly available there.
From Slate ● Nov. 13, 2025
He unzipped the bottom of his blue jeans to display the prosthetic limb on his leg.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2025
If Dad stopped to explain the construction of a bridge, she would find the workman in his blue jeans, eating his lunch high on the top of the span.
From "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
