pantalettes

English

Girl's costume showing linen pantalettes from Godey's Lady's Book 1855

Alternative forms

• pantalets

Pronunciation

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Noun

pantalettes pl (plural only)

1. (historical) A form of long underpants with a frill at the bottom of each leg.
   • 1851, Thomas Snarlyle, “Bloomerism: A Latter-Day Fragment”, in Punch, page 217:

     A mad world this, my friends, a world in its lunes, petty and other; in lunes other than petty now for some time; in petty-lunes, pettilettes, or pantalettes, about these six weeks, ever since when this rampant androgynous Bloomerism first came over from Yankee land.

   • 1929, M. Barnard Eldershaw, A House Is Built, Chapter IX, Section iii:

     In the second row of the cavalcade were Francie, Fanny's god-daughter, now thirteen years old and already elegant in long frilled pantalettes, tartan skirts, and a leghorn hat with streamers, […]

2. (historical) A removable kind of ruffle worn at the feet of women's drawers.

Further reading

• pantalettes on Wikipedia.Wikipedia