Jump to content

bloomers

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

[edit]

Pronunciation

[edit]
  • Audio (US):(file)

Etymology 1

[edit]
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Named after American women's-rights activist Amelia Bloomer (1818–1894).

Noun

[edit]

bloomers pl (plural only, attributive bloomer)

  1. (dated) Any of several forms of women’s divided garment for the lower body.
    • 1917, Edna Ferber, Fanny Herself[1]:
      Fanny, knowing this, had made up her mind to go straight to Horn & Udell. Now, Horn & Udell are responsible for the bloomers your small daughter wears under her play frock, in place of the troublesome and extravagant petticoat of the old days.
    • c. 1920, Kathleen Thompson Norris, Sisters[2]:
      Moreover, the family realized perfectly that Alix would have clipped her thick hair, and taken to bloomers or knickerbockers outright, []
    • 1920, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 1, in Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, →OCLC:
      Yet so radioactive were her nerves [] that she was more energetic than any of the hulking young women who, with calves bulging in heavy-ribbed woolen stockings beneath decorous blue serge bloomers, thuddingly galloped across the floor of the “gym” in practise for the Blodgett Ladies' Basket-Ball Team.
    • 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, [], →OCLC:
      Ladies’ grey flannelette bloomers, three shillings a pair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, loved for ever, they say.
    • 1936, Norman Lindsay, The Flyaway Highway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 19:
      But the truth was, her pantaloons came down to her ankles, and when she got the leg of one caught in a twig, she nearly fainted [...] "If you will be in these sort of adventures, you should wear bloomers."
  2. (informal) Women’s underpants with short legs; knickers or drawers.
[edit]
Translations
[edit]
See also
[edit]

Etymology 2

[edit]

Noun

[edit]

bloomers

  1. plural of bloomer

Anagrams

[edit]