[pants] 
) | 1. | trousers (def. 1). |
| 2. | underpants, esp. for women and children; panties. |
| 3. | British. men's underpants, esp. long drawers. |
| 4. | wear the pants, to have the dominant role; be in charge: I guess we know who wears the pants in that family. |
[pant] | 1. | to breathe hard and quickly, as after exertion. |
| 2. | to gasp, as for air. |
| 3. | to long with breathless or intense eagerness; yearn: to pant for revenge. |
| 4. | to throb or heave violently or rapidly; palpitate. |
| 5. | to emit steam or the like in loud puffs. |
| 6. | Nautical. (of the bow or stern of a ship) to work with the shock of contact with a succession of waves. Compare work (def. 24). |
| 7. | to breathe or utter gaspingly. |
| 8. | the act of panting. |
| 9. | a short, quick, labored effort at breathing; gasp. |
| 10. | a puff, as of an engine. |
| 11. | a throb or heave, as of the breast. |
[trou-zerz] ) | 1. | Sometimes, trouser. Also called pants. a usually loose-fitting outer garment for the lower part of the body, having individual leg portions that reach typically to the ankle but sometimes to any of various other points from the upper leg down. Compare Bermuda shorts, breeches, knickers (def. 1), short (def. 29a), slacks. |
| 2. | pantalets. |
| pant 1 (pānt) v. pant·ed, pant·ing, pants v. intr.
To utter hurriedly or breathlessly: I panted my congratulations to the winner of the race. n.
[Middle English panten, perhaps alteration of Old French pantaisier, from Vulgar Latin *pantasiāre, from Greek phantasioun, to form images, from phantasiā, appearance; see fantasy.] pant'ing·ly adv. |
| pant 2 (pānt) n.
[Short for pantaloon.] Word History: One would not expect a word for a modern article of clothing to come ultimately from the name of a 4th-century Roman Catholic saint, but that is the case with the word pants. It can be traced back to Pantaleon, the patron saint of Venice. He became so closely associated with the inhabitants of that city that the Venetians were popularly known as Pantaloni. Consequently, among the commedia dell'arte's stock characters the representative Venetian (a stereotypically wealthy but miserly merchant) was called Pantalone, or Pantalon in French. In the mid-17th century the French came to identify him with one particular style of trousers, a style which became known as pantaloons in English. Pantaloons was later applied to another style that came into fashion in the late 18th century, tight-fitting garments that had begun to replace knee breeches. After that pantaloons was used to refer to trousers in general. The abbreviation of pantaloons to pants met with some resistance at first; it was considered vulgar and, as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, "a word not made for gentlemen, but 'gents.'" First found in the writings of Edgar Allan Poe in 1840, pants has replaced the "gentleman's word" in English and has lost all obvious connection to Saint Pantaleon. |
pant (pānt)
v. pant·ed, pant·ing, pants
To breathe rapidly and shallowly.
pants
In addition to the idiom beginning with pants, also see ants in one's pants; beat the pants off; caught with one's pants down; get the lead out of (one's pants); kick in the pants; seat of the pants; talk someone's arm (pants) off; wear the pants.
pants
an outer garment covering the lower half of the body from the waist to the ankles and divided into sections to cover each leg separately. In attempting to define trousers, historians often explain that if any portion of a garment passed between the legs, it was an ancestor of the trousers. Thus defined, trousers can be traced to ancient times as worn, for example, by the Scythians, Persians, Japanese, and Hindus
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