knee pants

1 9.9

Short trousers that reach to the knee and are often worn by boys

noun
/niː pænts/

Archaic

: pantalones cortos

I got a good look at the clothes he was wearing as I passed him: knee pants and suspenders.

Examples

And I was wearing a cut-out shirt and knee pants, and I have my cap and my Kentucky wrist bag with my change, and I am gone.

Fiction book (1994)
He was dressed in a white shirt, red tie, and blue knee pants.
Another lackey in knee pants and silk stockings announced dinner.

Synonyms

short pants

vsknee pants

5 1.0

Trousers ending above the knee that people wear in warm weather or for sports

is a historical boys style from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Bermuda shorts

vsknee pants

3 2.5

Short trousers that reach to or just above the knee, often worn in warm weather

is a historic boys garment rather than a modern casual item

britches

vsknee pants

Informal

3 8.4

Loose trousers like old work pants

is a specific short boys' garment rather than a general informal trouser term

knicker

vsknee pants

Archaic

2 8.1

Loose knee-length trousers gathered at the knee and worn for sport or old-fashioned dress

is the same length but tied to a specific historic boys' period

knickerbocker

vsknee pants

Archaic

1 9.9

A type of short loose pants that gather at the knee

refers specifically to a traditional boys style from the late nineteenth century

knee breeches

vsknee pants

Archaic

1 9.9

Short trousers fastened just below the knee, worn by men in the 1600s and 1700s

is later in time and tied to boys' fashion around the nineteenth century

breeches

vsknee pants

Archaic

1 9.9

Trousers that end above the knee and fasten below it

is a later, specific boys' style rather than the general historic garment type

Jamaica shorts

vsknee pants

2.8

Short pants that end at the knee and are worn for sport or hot weather

is a period boys' style rather than a modern athletic short

knickerbockers

vsknee pants

Archaic

9.9

Short loose trousers gathered at the knee, often worn by boys or for sports

is similar in length but specifically a historic boys fashion of that era

knickers

vsknee pants

Archaic

7.7

Short trousers that end above the knee, often worn by boys or for sports

is similar in use but more narrowly identified as a boys' era garment

smallclothes

vsknee pants

Archaic

9.9

Knee-length trousers that men wore with formal clothes in the 17th and 18th centuries

is a younger boys' style from a much later historical period

How Short

hot pants

Archaic

10 3.4

short pants

5 1.0

knee pants

Archaic

1 9.9

capri

3 3.7

trousers

110 1.0

Surface Forms

knee pants singular

knee pants plural

knee pant singular

Morphology

knee + pant

The compound meaning is directly built from 'knee' (the joint) + 'pants' (trousers), so a learner who knows both words can infer these are trousers reaching to the knee. This noun–noun compositional pattern for clothing length is common cross-linguistically and follows standard English compounding, making the MWE immediately understandable to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Knee pants comes from the simple idea of trousers that stop at the knee. Boys in the late 1800s and early 1900s often wore these short pants, so the name now means 'short trousers to the knee'.