What does "knickerbockers" mean?
Men's or boys' baggy knee breeches, of a type particularly popular in the early 20th century.
Knickerbockers
/ˈnɪkɚbɑkɚz/ noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Meaning at a glance
- Primary sense: Men's or boys' baggy knee breeches, of a type particularly popular in the early 20th century.
- Grammar: knickerbockers is listed as noun.
- Nearest alternatives: bloomers, breeches, dungarees, knee breeches.
- Usage evidence: He went to the flat of one of his schoolfellows and came out, an hour later, irrecognizable, rigged out as an Englishman of thirty, in a brown check suit, with knickerbockers, woolen stockings and a cap, a high-colored complexion and a red wig.
How to use "knickerbockers"
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Meaning check
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Source and review context
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Before you rely on this definition
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Compare nearby meanings
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Definition decision workflow
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Definitions
Noun
- 1 Men's or boys' baggy knee breeches, of a type particularly popular in the early 20th century. plural, plural-only
"Five men and a woman, two young girls,[…], and a boy […] are at the machines sewing knickerbockers, “knee-pants” in the Ludlow Street dialect."
- 2 plural of Knickerbocker; New Yorkers, particularly descendants of its original Dutch settlers archaic, form-of, historical, plural
- 3 (used in the plural) trousers ending above the knee wordnet
- 4 The formal name of the New York Knicks, a team in the National Basketball Association uncommon
- 5 A short-lived 19th-century baseball team in New York historical
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
"He went to the flat of one of his schoolfellows and came out, an hour later, irrecognizable, rigged out as an Englishman of thirty, in a brown check suit, with knickerbockers, woolen stockings and a cap, a high-colored complexion and a red wig."
Common questions
What is a synonym for "knickerbockers"?
Common synonyms include: bloomers, breeches, dungarees, knee breeches, knee pants, knickers.
How do you use "knickerbockers" in a sentence?
He went to the flat of one of his schoolfellows and came out, an hour later, irrecognizable, rigged out as an Englishman of thirty, in a brown check suit, with knickerbockers, woolen stockings and a cap, a high-colored complexion and a red wig.
How do you pronounce "knickerbockers"?
Pronounced /ˈnɪkɚbɑkɚz/.
Etymology
Etymology 1
From Knickerbocker + -s, after the short breeches worn by Diedrich Knickerbocker in George Cruikshank's illustrations of Washington Irving's 1809 A History of New York.
Etymology 2
See Knickerbocker.