Knickers (pronounced nik-erz)
(1) Loose-fitting short
trousers gathered in at the knees.
(2) A bloomers-like
undergarment worn by women.
(3) A general term for the panties
worn by women.
(4) In product ranges, a
descriptor of certain styles of panties, usually the short-legged underpants
worn by women or girls.
(5) As the slang “to get
one's knickers in a twist”, to become flustered or agitated (mostly UK, Australia
& New Zealand).
(6) In slang, a mild
expression of annoyance (archaic).
1866: A clipping of knickerbockers
(the plural and a special use of knickerbocker). The use is derived from the short breeches
worn by Diedrich Knickerbocker in George Cruikshank's illustrations of
Washington Irving's (1783-1859) A History
of New York (1809), published under the pen-name Dietrich Knickbocker. The surname Knickerbocker (also spelled
Knikkerbakker, Knikkerbacker, and Knickerbacker) is a American creation, based on
the names of early Dutch early settlers of New Netherland, thought probably
derived from the Dutch immigrant Harmen Jansen van Bommel(l), who went
variously by the names van Wy(y)e, van Wyekycback(e), Kinnekerbacker,
Knickelbacker, Knickerbacker, Kinckerbacker, Nyckbacker, and Kynckbacker. The precise etymology is a mystery, speculations
including a corruption of the Dutch Wyekycback, the Dutch knacker (cracker) + the
German Bäcker (or the Dutch bakker (baker)), or the Dutch knicker (marble (toy))
+ the German Bäcker (or the Dutch bakker).
Aside from the obvious application (of or relating to knickerbockers),
it was in the US used attributively as a modifier, referencing the social class
with which the garment was traditionally associated; this use is now listed as archaic.
Men in knickerbockers.
Washington
Irving was an American short-story writer and diplomat, most remembered today
as the author of Rip Van Winkle (1819).
Although the bulk of his work was that of a conventional historian, his
early writing was satirical, many of his barbs aimed at New York’s high society
and it was Irving who in 1807 first gave NYC the nickname "Gotham"
(from the Anglo-Saxon, literally “homestead where goats are kept”, the
construct being the Old English gāt (goat)
+ hām (home)). The name Diedrich Knickerbocker he introduced in 1809 in A History of New York (the original
title A History of New-York from the
Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty). A satire of local politics and personalities,
it was also an elaborate literary hoax, Irving through rumor and missing person
advertisements creating the impression Mr Knickerbocker had vanished from his
hotel, leaving behind nothing but a completed manuscript. The story captured the public imagination and,
under the Knickerbocker pseudonym, Irving published A History of New York to critical and commercial success. The name Diedrich Knickerbocker became a
nickname for the Manhattan upper-class (later extended to New Yorkers in
general) and was adopted by the New York Knickerbockers basketball team
(1845-1873), the name revived in 1946 for the team now part of the US National
Basketball League although their name usually appears as the New York Knicks. The figurative use to describe New Yorkers of
whatever status faded from use early in the twentieth century. Knickerbocker was of course a real name, one
of note the US foreign correspondent HR Knickerbocker (1898–1949) who in 1936
was a journalist for the Hearst Press, accredited to cover the Spanish Civil
War. Like many foreign reporters, his
work made difficult by the military censors who, after many disputes, early in
1937 deported him after he’d tried to report the retreat of one of the brigades
supplied by the Duce with the words “The
Italians fled, lock, stock and barrel-organ”.
For designers, conventional knickers can be an impediment so are sometimes discarded: Anja Rubik, Met Gala 2012. Note JBF hair-style and fine hip-bone definition.
Knickers
dates from 1866, in reference to loose-fitting pants for men worn buckled or
buttoned at the waist and knees, a clipping of knickerbockers, used since 1859
and so called for their because of their resemblance to the trousers of
old-time Dutchmen in George Cruikshank's (1792-1878) illustrations in the History of
New York. A now extinct derivation
was the Scottish nicky-tam (garter
worn over trousers), dating from 1911, a shortened, colloquial form, the
construct being knickers + the Scottish & northern English dialect taum, from Old Norse taumr (cord, rein, line), cognate with the
Old English team, the root sense of
which appears to be "that which draws". It was originally a string tied by Scottish
farmers around rolled-up trousers to keep the legs of them out of the dirt (in
the style of the plus-fours once associated with golf, so-named because they
were breeches with four inches of excess material which could hang in a fold
below the fastening beneath the knee, the plus-four a very similar style to the
classic knickerbocker). The word “draws”
survives in Scots-English to refer to trousers in general. It
also had a technical use in haberdashery, describing a linsey-woolsey fabric
with a rough knotted surface on the right side which was once a popular fabric
for women's dresses.
Cami-knickers, 1926, Marshalls & Snelgrove, Oxford Street, London.
The New York garment
industry in 1882 adopted knickers to describe a "short, loose-fitting
undergarment for women" apparently because of the appeal of the name. By 1884, the word had crossed the Atlantic
and in both France and the UK was used to advertise the flimsier of women’s “unmentionables”
and there have long many variations (although there’s not always a consistency
of style between manufacturers) including camiknickers,
French knickers, the
intriguingly-named witches' knickers
& (the somewhat misleading) no
knickers. From the very start, women’s
knickers were, as individual items, sold as “a pair” and there’s no “knicker”
whereas the singular form knickerbocker, unlike the plural, may only refer to a
single garment. In the matter of English
constructed plurals, the history matters rather than any rule. Shoes and socks are obviously both a pair because
that’s how they come but a pair of trousers seems strange because it’s a single
item. That’s because modern "trousers" evolved from the Old Scots Trews, Truis
& Triubhas and the Middle English
trouzes & trouse which were separate items (per leg) and thus supplied in
pairs, the two coverings joined by a breechcloth or a codpiece. A pair of spectacles (glasses) is similar in
that lens were originally separate (al la the monocle), things which could be purchased
individually or as a pair. The idea of a
pair of knickers was natural because it was an adaptation of earlier use for
the men’s garments, sold as “pairs of knickerbockers” or “pairs of knickers”.
Lindsay Lohan in cage bra and knickers, Complex Magazine photoshoot, 2011.
The bra, like a
pair of knckers, is designed obviously to accommodate a pair yet is described
in the singular for reasons different again.
Its predecessor, the bodice, was often supplied in two pieces (and was
thus historically referred to as “a pair of bodies” (and later “a pair of
bodicies”)) and laced together but that’s unrelated to the way a bra is described:
It’s a clipping of the French brassière
and that is singular. Brasserie entered
English in the late nineteenth century although the French original often more
closely resembled a chemise or camisole, the adoption in English perhaps influenced
by the French term for something like the modern bra being soutien-gorge (literally, "throat-supporter") which
perhaps had less appeal although it may be no worse than the more robust rehausseur de poitrine (chest uplifter)
which offers more functionally still. Being
English, brassiere was soon shortened to bra and a vast supporting industry evolved.
Kiki de Montparnasse lace knickers, US$190 at FarFetch.
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