short shorts

English

a man wearing short shorts

Alternative forms

• short-shorts

Noun

short shorts pl (plural only)

1. Trousers that are very short, covering the pelvis but exposing most of the legs; hot pants.
   • 1935 April 9, “Jaeger House [advertisement]”, in The Times, page 14:

     She is telling them about Jaeger man-tailored shorts, kilted shorts and short shorts, and about the shirt-maker tennis dresses. She is telling them about the golf suits with divided skirts and ‘crazy shirts’

   • 1956, “Short shorts become permanent in U.S. scene”, in Life‎^[1], page 54:

     Short shorts gained favor with women because of their comfort and because Bermuda models tend to emphasize the least attractive part of the legs—the knee and calf.

   • 2012, Tim Gunn, Tim Gunn’s Fashion Bible, page 95:

     On the shorter side, short-shorts and hot pants are very on trend right now—denim ones are called Daisy Dukes, after the sex symbol on the TV show The Dukes of Hazzard—but you need to be a certain age and have a certain body type to pull them off.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:short shorts.
2. plural of short short (“a short short story”)

See also

• shorts