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Glite Dictionary
to wear thongs

to wear thongs

1 7.9
To put on flip-flop sandals that people wear in Australia
  • phrasal verb
  • Australian
translation icon : usar chanclas
  • We wear thongs, bro ♪ We do AVOs, we wear uggs, bro...

Examples

  • Perpetual adolescence allows one to understand why fifty-year-old men buy Harley Davidsons and why thirteen-year-old girls wear thongs.

    Academic text (2005)

  • Oh, no, I don't wear thongs.

    Sisters (2015)

  • They're wearing thongs.

    Lucky Miles (2007)

  • Imagine if our cave-dwelling ancestors didn't like that you wore red briefs when they were all wearing thongs made of leather; you'd be dumped and abandoned.

    Blog text (24)

  • He is wearing thongs and, tellingly, a beaded belt buckle that depicts none other than "the end of the trail" motif.

    Academic text (1995)

  • In the hot weather, many people choose to wear thongs to keep their feet cool.

  • During our beach vacation, I decided to wear thongs while walking on the sand.

  • At the outdoor summer party, everyone was wearing thongs to enjoy the sun.

Surface Forms

wear thongs infinitive
wearing thongs present participle
wears thongs third person singular
wore thongs past
worn thongs past participle

Morphology

wear + thong

The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'wear' (to have on) with 'thong' (a backless sandal), so a B1 learner who knows both words would understand this as putting on flip‑flop sandals; it follows a straightforward verb + noun compositional pattern. Although the label is regionally Australian and 'thong' has a different meaning in some dialects (e.g., underwear), that lexical ambiguity does not change the expression's compositional transparency when the sandal sense is known.

Etymology

Wear thongs comes from the thin strap called a thong that sits between your toes on a sandal. So, it means 'to wear flip-flop sandals'.