undershorts

English

Etymology

From under- +‎ shorts, by analogy with underpants, etc.

Noun

1. Underpants, type of underwear worn in skin contact with the hip portion of the body, small enough to be worn invisibly under shorts.

   I have one clean pair of undershorts.

   I have to buy more undershorts.

   • 1934, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Pirates of Venus, Chapter 3, p. 41,^[1]

     It being very warm, I removed all of my clothing except my undershorts and lay down to sleep.

   • 1969, Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint, New York: Vintage, 1994, “The Jewish Blues,” p. 47,^[2]

     […] like a mouse [I] hop frantically about on my toes, trying to clear my feet of my undershorts before anybody can peek inside, where, to my chagrin, to my bafflement, to my mortification, I always discover in the bottommost seam a pale and wispy brushstroke of my shit.

   • 1989, Shashi Tharoor, The Great Indian Novel, New York: Arcade, 1993, “The Thirteenth Book: Passages through India,” p. 268,^[3]

     I have been debriefed—I believe that is the current expression, though I am always tempted, when I hear it, to make sure I still have my undershorts on—by the mandarins of the External Affairs Ministry.

Translations

underpants

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Dutch: onderbroek (nl)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Finnish: alushousut (fi)
• German: Unterhose (de)

See also

• briefs

References

• “undershorts”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.