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trunk hose

American  

noun

(used with a plural verb)
  1. full, baglike breeches covering the body from the waist to the middle of the thigh or lower, sometimes having the stockings attached in one piece, worn by men in the 16th and 17th centuries.


trunk hose British  

noun

  1. a man's puffed-out breeches reaching to the thighs and worn with tights in the 16th century

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of trunk hose

First recorded in 1615–25

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.

See Examples For:

Ford recounts how, in the same year that Walweyn was arrested, Thomas Bradshaw was marched home through the streets with his trunk hose deflated and de-poofed, the stuffing torn out.

From Slate Feb. 10, 2021

Dost think that Mary Burton prizes these weary labyrinthine sentences—all hay and wool, like the monstrous swelling of trunk hose?

From The Panchronicon by MacKaye, Harold Steele

Shoes, stockings, hats, crowns, armour, swords, cloaks, breeches, waistcoats, jerkins, trunk hose.

From The Magic City by Millar, H. R. (Harold Robert)

The captains of the river craft talk of a little bulbous-bottomed Dutch goblin, in trunk hose and sugar-loafed hat, with a speaking-trumpet in his hand, which, they say, keeps about the Dunderberg.

From Initial Studies in American Letters by Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)

As a youngster, I liked to think that I was sitting on the identical benches occupied, more than three hundred years earlier, by Elizabethan youths in trunk hose and doublets.

From Here, There and Everywhere by Hamilton, Frederick Spencer, Lord

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