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Breeches vs Knickers - What's the difference?

breeches | knickers |

As nouns the difference between breeches and knickers

is that breeches is plural of lang=en while knickers is knickerbockers.

As an interjection knickers is

a mild exclamation of annoyance.

breeches

English

(Webster 1913)

Noun

(head)
  • A garment worn by men, covering the hips and thighs; smallclothes.
  • * 1829 , , "The Devil's Thoughts,"
    • And how then was the Devil drest?
    Oh! he was in his Sunday's best:
    His jacket was red and his breeches were blue,
    And there was a hole where the tail came through.
  • (informal) Trousers; pantaloons; britches.

    • Related terms

    * breeches buoy: in the life-saving service, a pair of canvas breeches depending from an annular or beltlike life buoy which is usually of cork. This contrivance, inclosing the person to be rescued, is hung by short ropes from a block which runs upon the hawser stretched from the ship to the shore, and is drawn to land by hauling lines. * breeches pipe:, a forked pipe forming two branches united at one end. * knee breeches: breeches coming to the knee, and buckled or fastened there; smallclothes. * wear the breeches (Colloquial): to usurp the authority of the husband; -- said of a wife. * become too big for one's britches (Southern U.S.) : to have an overblown feeling of self importance.

    See also

    * pantaloons * britches * jodhpurs

    knickers

    English

    (wikipedia knickers)

    Noun

    (en-plural noun)
  • 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 .
  • (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

    (en interjection)
  • A mild exclamation of annoyance.

    • See also

    * French knickers * get one's knickers in a twist English pluralia tantum ----