shirt sleeves

See also: shirt-sleeves and shirtsleeves

English

Noun

shirt sleeves

1. plural of shirt sleeve

Noun

shirt sleeves pl (plural only)

1. Preceded by in: wearing only a shirt without a coat, jacket, or comparable protective covering over it.
   • 1923, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Torestin”, in Kangaroo, London: Martin Secker […], →OCLC, page 1:

     A bunch of workmen were lying on the grass of the park beside Macquarie Street, in the dinner hour. It was winter, the end of May, but the sun was warm, and they lay there in shirt-sleeves, talking.

   • 2003, Jefferson M. Koonce, Human Factors in the Training of Pilots, →ISBN, page 122:

     In flying in cold climates, people use the cabin heater to maintain a comfortable working environment and fly in shirt sleeves or a light jacket.

   • 2011, Nikolai Gogol, Taras Bulba: And Other Tales, →ISBN, page 220:

     Ivan Ivanovitch, when the weather gets too warm, throws off his pelisse and his remaining upper garments, and sits, in his shirt sleeves, on the balcony to observe what is going on in the courtyard and the street.

2. (by extension) A working-class socioeconomic status (not requiring a professional business jacket).
   • 2005, Erastus Wiman, Chances of Success: Episodes and Observations in the Life of a Busy Man, →ISBN:

     It is to Andrew Carnegie that the expression is attributed in America, "There are only two generations between shirt sleeves and shirt sleeves," The remark is certainly not original with the genial Scot, who is playing such a successful " star engagement " before the American people, nevertheless, it is a most satisfactory sentence. If the wealth which springs from the efforts made in shirt sleeves by one generation, is enjoyed in broad-cloth only by the next two, and that, in the fourth remove, shirt sleeves again become ascendant, so much the better for the country.

Alternative forms

• shirt-sleeves
• shirtsleeves

Anagrams

• silver sheets