body stocking
- noun
- /ˈbɑdi ˈstɑkɪŋ/
- NSFW
- For the dance recital, each performer was required to wear a black body stocking.
- wear a body stocking
Examples
-
She wore a body stocking under her dress to create a smooth silhouette.
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"It's this damned wormhole," Jessica said, shrugging her arms back into the body stocking and closing the top with one stroke of her right hand.
Fiction book (2001) -
Moments earlier, he thought she had been wearing a kind of body-stocking.
Fiction book (2001) -
They were in body stockings on stage at age 16.
Blog text (19) -
Janice, in a black body stocking, giggled all evening about who might put a run in it.
Fiction book (1994) -
Matter of fact, Dr. Clyne himself developed the thin weight Kevlar body stocking that literally...
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I do remember hearing Ann Richards relate how she liked to wear body stockings, as I think they are called, and hers had little metal snaps at her crotch.
Blog text (23) -
In chilly weather, she appreciated how warm her body stocking kept her throughout the day.
Synonyms
A close-fitting one-piece item of clothing that covers the upper body and sometimes the arms or legs
A tight, stretchy piece of clothing that covers the torso and sometimes the arms and legs
How Covered
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'stocking' (a close-fitting hosiery garment) applied to the 'body' signals a stocking-like garment that covers the torso (and sometimes limbs). This follows ordinary English compounding and clothing-word semantics, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can reasonably infer the one-piece tight-fitting undergarment meaning.
Etymology
Body stocking comes from the idea of a stocking for the whole body. It is a tight, 'one-piece' undergarment that 'covers' the torso and often the arms and legs, so the name explains what the garment does today.