There’s something inherently amusing about the word “pants.” It’s not for nothing, after all, that David Letterman’s production company is called Worldwide Pants. One thing about “pants” is that it’s plural, and even though it’s been centuries since the garment was made in two pieces, one for each leg, we still refer to a “pair of pants.”
“Pants” is a shortened version of “pantaloons,” which comes from the character Pantaloon in French and Italian comedy shows as far back as the 1500s — the character wore a costume that included long, fairly tight pants that often enclosed his feet as well, like today’s tights. It didn’t take long for “pantaloons” to be used to mean tight trousers.
“Trousers,” in contrast, means pants that are relatively loose. The word, which is older than “pantaloons,” contrasts with “pants” in several ways. It’s a lengthening (of “trouse”) rather than a shortening (of “pantaloons”), and while “pantaloons” came from southern Europe, “trouse” comes from the north. It was originally Irish and Scottish, and may have Celtic roots. In the 1300s “trouse” (or “trows” or “trews”) fit tightly, not loosely. The oldest citation that can be easily deciphered (that is, it’s not in Old or Middle English) is from 1581: “They had ech of them a hatt, a lether jerken, a payre of hosen, which they called trowes, and a payre of broges.” It wasn’t long after that — the early 1600s — that the word “trousers” appeared. In 1625 the book Comedies and Tragedies included: “I’le have you flead, and trossers made of thy skin to tumble in.” By 1834, the History of British Costume mentioned some related terms: “They wore close trousers, which they called bracæ; these trousers, an article of apparel by which all barbaric nations seem to have been distinguished from the Romans, being made of their chequered cloth, called breach and brycan, and by the Irish, breacan.”
“Breeches,” which also shows up as “britches” in 19th century usage, comes from one of the meanings of “breech”, which is (or was; it’s obsolete) to cover something with cloth. In 1762 Horace Walpole wrote a book about English painters in which he talked about some sort of combination of trousers and breeches: “ James..hated novelties. He..hunted in the most cumbrous and inconvenient of all dresses, a ruff and trowser breeches.”
“Slacks” is another modern word for pants, but when it was first used in regard to clothing at all, around the mid 1800s, it only meant the seat of a pair of trousers: “To take a feller up jest by the slacko’ ’s trowsis.” Even though trousers, pants, breeches, and pantaloons varied over the centuries in how tightly they fit (and which word meant tight pants and which meant loose), the seat of the pants was probably the loosest, or “slackest” part, and so “slack” started to mean not just the loose part of a rope or sail, but that part of pants, too.
At the very end of the 1800s, a special kind of pants began to appear. They were designed for women riding horses, and for some obscure reason were named after a town in northwestern India: Jodhpur: “The Jodhpur riding-breeches—breeches and gaiters all in one piece, as full as you like above the knee, fitting tight below it, without a single button or strap..are on the way to be world-famous.” G.W.Steevens, wrote that passage in his 1899 book In India, and he hight have first encountered the unique breeches in or around Jodhpur. “Jodhpurs” is still occasionally in use in fashion, but since pants that are loose at the top but tight below your knee aren’t a popular item at the moment, the word has become pretty rare.
As rare as “Jodhpurs” is, it’s still not as rare as the word for a kind of pants what were very wide and loose all the way down. Although you’ll still see pants like this, people haven’t called them “galligaskins” since the mid-1800s. “Galligaskin” was an attempt by English-speaking people to adopt the French word “garguesque,” which in the 1500s meant the same thing; loose pants. Not only did they have some difficulty in pronouncing it, the spelling took quite some time to stabilize around “galligaskins.” In 1577 it was “galigascons,” in 1581 “garragascoynes,” in 1620 “Gally-Gascoins,” in 1761 “galligaskins,” and in 1988…poof, the word had completely disappeared. This really is a shame; even though all the words for “pants” may seem at least mildly silly, in the inherent humor category “galligaskins” wins by a mile.
