Knickers

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ˈnɪkÉ™z/

Origin

Short for knickerbockers.

Full definition of knickers

Noun

1. (colloquial, now US, rare) Knickerbockers.
• 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage 1993, p. 29:Students in the University were not permitted to keep cars, and the men – hatless, in knickers and bright pull-overs – looked down upon the town boys who wore hats cupped rigidly upon pomaded heads ....
• 1946, Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, Really the Blues, Payback Press 1999, p. 77:He was a student at Notre Dame, a robust Joe-College kind of kid, husky and tall and always dressed in plus-four knickers.
2. (UK, NZ) Women's underpants.
• 2010, Sali Hughes, ‘Calendar girls galore’, The Guardian, 24 Apr 2010:The debate here is not over whether raising £26,000 (and counting) for our troops is a wonderful thing – it unarguably is – but over whether, whenever times are tough and money must be found, our default reaction as women should be to take off our knickers to help out?

Interjection

1. A mild exclamation of annoyance.