plus fours

English

Plus-fours on the golfer and on some of the audience

Alternative forms

• plus-fours

Noun

plus fours pl (plural only)

1. Wide knickerbocker breeches, so called because originally they were designed with four inches of excess material so as to hang in a fold below the fastening beneath the knee; traditionally associated with sports, especially golf.
   • 2009, Alan Gould, Every Creature of God Is Good, Lulu.com:

     And he looked quite smart in his brown plus fours. A few years ago he would not have dared to wear plus fours. They had belonged exclusively to the wealthier folk. Now everybody wore them. He was pleased with his pair. Quite cheap they had been too.

   • 2010, Thomas J. Schaeper, Kathleen Schaeper, “Yanks and Brits”, in Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the Creation of an American Elite, New York, NY: Berghahn Books, →ISBN, page 50:

     Other Americans went to the opposite extreme. They donned plus-fours, carried canes, and affected British accents. What were natural habits for the British became artificial mannerisms for their American emulators.