pair of trousers
2
1.1
- noun
- /pɛr ʌv ˈtraʊzərz/
- UK
:
pantalones
- She wore a stylish pair of trousers to the meeting yesterday.
- a pair of trousers and a shirt
- a pair of trousers and a jacket
- two pairs of trousers
If I can say I own a pair of pants, well those are my fucking pants.
- If I can say I own a pair of pants, well those are my fucking pants.
- And then these, I bought them because they sounded like a pair of pants I have from Topshop.
- But this is a pair of trousers again with that like stripe down the side.
- My mom thought I wanted her to donate a pair of pants
- This is my one and only pair of pants I have no literally I have no more pants.
- That first top was really great and they're, you know, those dark pair of pants, they were really high quality.
- So I brought one pair of blue mom jeans, one lightweight pair of pants.
- The stain on the carpet, the spot on your dog's back, the tear in a pair of pants.
Examples
-
It is hands down the comfiest pair of pants that I own.
-
I had another pair of trousers in my room, but they were tuxedo trousers, and I used them for waiter and busboy jobs.
Fiction book (1997) -
These look like a pair of trousers right up my street.
-
Get him another pair of trousers.
-
I noticed a pair of trousers.
-
He wants to try on a pair of trousers.
-
I went to my bedroom and pulled on a clean pair of trousers over my pajamas as well as a fresh shirt.
Fiction book (1991) -
As if to hammer Mr. Singh's point home, a man came in with a pair of trousers he wanted copied.
Blog text (8) -
Bernzy moves briskly to a chair with a pair of trousers draped over its back.
Fiction book (1992) -
I pulled on a clean pair of trousers before heading out for the day.
Synonyms
110
1.0
Clothes worn on the lower body with separate parts for each leg
24
1.0
A piece of clothing that covers the waist to the ankles and has two legs
1
1.3
A pair of loose pants worn for smart or casual occasions
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from the parts: 'pair' denotes two matching parts and 'trousers' denotes the garment with two leg sections, so 'a pair of trousers' refers to that single two-legged garment. This compositional 'pair of + clothing' pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows normal English noun phrase composition, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will understand it.
Etymology
Pair of trousers comes from a time when leg coverings were made as two separate pieces. People called them a pair because there were 'two parts'—one for each leg—so we still say 'a pair of trousers' today even though it is one garment.