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Glite Dictionary
to wet one's pants

to wet one's pants

8.6
To accidentally pee in your clothes from fear, laughter, or embarrassment
  • phrasal verb
  • NSFW
translation icon : hacerse pis
  • I was laughing so hard during the movie that I almost wet my pants.

Examples

Synonyms

to wet
vsto wet one's pants
55 6.5

To pee in your bed or clothes by accident

is used for accidental urination caused by strong emotion rather than childhood bed incidents
to piss oneself
vsto wet one's pants
  • Offensive
5 9.9

To wet your clothes when you laugh a lot or feel very afraid

is a less crude expression often used without vulgar tone
to pee one's pants
vsto wet one's pants
  • Informal
8.4

To accidentally wet your clothes because you feel very scared, very excited, or laugh too hard

is a slightly softer or more polite way to describe that accidental urination
to soil oneself
vsto wet one's pants
  • NSFW
9.9

To accidentally pee or poo in your clothes because you are very scared

is limited to involuntary urination and not usually defecation
to fill one's pants
vsto wet one's pants
  • NSFW
9.9

To be so frightened that you almost wet yourself

is used for literal accidental urination rather than mainly figurative fright expressions

How Urgent

to wet one's pants
  • NSFW
8.6
to rush to the crapper
  • Offensive
9.9
to need to pee
  • Informal
12 5.6

Surface Forms

wet one's pants infinitive
wet one's pants past
wet one's pants past participle
wetting one's pants present participle
wets one's pants third person singular

Morphology

wet + one + pant

The phrase literally combines 'wet' (make something wet) with 'one's pants' (one's clothing), so a learner who knows the constituents will readily infer 'make one's pants wet.' In English this collocation commonly denotes involuntary urination (and similar formulations occur in many languages), so the meaning is directly derivable and therefore transparent to a B1 learner.

Etymology

The idiom wet one's pants comes from the simple image of someone who cannot hold their urine and wets their pants. So today it means 'to pee by accident', often because of very strong laughter, fear, or embarrassment.