Definitions
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun plural Colloq. or Slang Breeches; trousers; ; underwear generally, especially women's; -- now usually referred to as
unmentionables .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun colloquial, dated
breeches ;trousers
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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"inexpressibles" -- (a word which, the reader may be interested to learn, is as old as 1793).
De Libris: Prose and Verse Austin Dobson 1880
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Which led to the use of euphemisms such as " inexpressibles " for leggy items of clothing.
To Put It Another Way Eric Felten 2010
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What Mr. Keyes seems to miss is that " inexpressibles " for " breeches " — going back to a bawdy 1790 poem by John Wolcot — was a comic formulation lampooning phony propriety.
To Put It Another Way Eric Felten 2010
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Well, no one could ever call YOU "inexpressibles", could they?
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Both wore their still abundant hair combed straight back and powdered, a round man's hat, a man's cravat and waistcoat, but in the place of "inexpressibles," a short petticoat and boots: the whole covered by a coat of blue cloth, of quite a peculiar cut.
Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century George Paston
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A felt hat, remarkable only for its being crownless, adorned my head; a ragged blanket sufficed - only in a measure, however - to keep the cold from my coatless body; a pair of "inexpressibles," horribly dilapidated, encased my lower extremities; a boot on one foot, and the other wrapped up in old rags.
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"inexpressibles;" and although much annoyed that no Indians could be induced to guide us to Esquimaux Bay, I determined on making the attempt with such assistance as Mr. Erlandson could give me, who was well acquainted with the upper part of the river.
Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory Volume II. (of 2) John M'lean
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"inexpressibles" inexpressibly bad, or, as Coleridge would have said,
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843 Various
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a matter of choice, I prefer a pair of decent "inexpressibles" and a
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"inexpressibles" might affect the fortunes of the second act, but I liked all their gay petticoats in the first, extremely.
Records of a Girlhood Fanny Kemble 1851
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