Canions

Slops or beeches without canions or nether-stocks.

chausses à queue de merlus — round breeches with strait canions.

For nought fears he backbiters' nips in doublet or in canions.

c. 1615–1657, Middleton, More Dissemblers Besides Women, i. 4. Come, you are so modest now, 'tis pity that thou wast ever bred to be thrust through a pair of canions; thou wouldst have made a pretty foolish waiting-woman, but for one thing.

"Canions" seem to be always associated with wide breeches of the "trunk-hose" class—sc. "French" or "round" hose, generally "paned"—or "gally-gascoynes", and impression definitely confirmed by Covarrubias y Horozco. [...] an article (a) tubular in structure, (b) appended to shortish wide breeches, (c) covering the lower thigh and knee. With these postulates before us we are immediately reminded of a very characteristic feature of masculine costume which makes its appearance in contemporary art just about the date when canions begin to be noticed by writers. […] stockings are depicted as drawn up and secured indifferently outside [Plate, A, (a)] or inside (Figs. 1 and 2B) the canions. […]

(Trunk-hose are either worn with long cloth stockings sewn to them, or—from about 1570—they are equipped with canions.) For a while they appear to have lost […] Fig. 633. Canion Nether stocks were 'curiously knitte with open seam down the […]