pants
Americannoun
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underpants, especially for women and children; panties.
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British. men's underpants, especially long drawers.
idioms
plural noun
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an undergarment reaching from the waist to the thighs or knees
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Also called: trousers. a garment shaped to cover the body from the waist to the ankles or knees with separate tube-shaped sections for both legs
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informal to bore extremely
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informal to scare extremely
adjective
Usage
What is a basic definition of pants? Pants are an article of clothing that extends from the waist to around the ankles and fits around each leg. Also known as trousers, pants are worn by people of all genders and ages. As opposed to a dress or a skirt, pants are divided down the middle and have openings for each leg. The fabric of pants wrap around each leg and usually extends to the ankles or at least past the knees. A single item of this clothing is called “a pair of pants” and multiple items are called “pairs of pants.” This article of clothing is never referred to as a “pant.”Pants is a general term for this type of clothing and is further divided into other specific kinds of pants, depending on fabric and cut. Jeans are pants made out of denim or corduroy, while leggings are close-fitting pants, often made out of a stretchy material like spandex. An article of clothing that is identical to pants but stops at or before the knee is referred to as a pair of shorts.
- Used in a sentence: She bought three new pairs of pants to wear with her new sweater.
Etymology
Origin of pants
1830–40; short for pantaloons
Explanation
In the UK, pants are undergarments or underwear. If you're from the U.S. or Canada, pants are the clothes you wear over your underwear, pulling them on one long leg at a time. In most English-speaking countries, the garments you wear under your clothing are known as undies, underpants, or panties, but in the UK, they're pants. If you ask your British friend to show you their new pants, they may look shocked — but anyone from North America will know you mean jeans or trousers. Pants was a 19th-century shortened version of pantaloons, named after a character in Italian comedies of the 1500s who wore tight trousers.
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.
When a demonstrator in a face mask tapped his pants’ pockets and signaled he didn’t have the cash for the flag, the vendor handed him a Mexico flag anyway.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 13, 2025
The young adult snakes were hidden in the inner thigh of his pants in snake bags tied to the pants’ drawstring.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 14, 2024
Well anyway, the thing about ‘period pants’ is they’re loose.
From The Guardian • Aug. 3, 2020
"It is policymakers' decision to put on our 'big boy and big girl pants' and say, 'It is the lesser of these two evils,'" he said.
From Salon • Apr. 15, 2020
They were stinging his face and his hands and his neck and his nose, they were crawling up his pants’ legs and stinging and crawling down the back of his neck and stinging.
From "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
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.
