kneepants

She sat dreaming of it here with rows of dark faces before her, and the singsong wail of a little black reader with his head aslant and his patched kneepants.

The Quest of the Silver Fleece A Novel 1915

Five men and a woman, two young girls, not fifteen, and a boy who says unasked that he is fifteen, and lies in saying it, are at the machines sewing knickerbockers, “kneepants” in the Ludlow Street dialect.

XI. The Sweaters of Jewtown 1890

And make him a blonde in kneepants while he’s at it.

Firedoglake » Late Nite FDL: Beam Me Up, Snotty 2006