Other Words for Underwear

Knickers is actually a standard word for underwear, mainly in Britain. "Knickers" derives from "knickerbockers," or "loose-fitting short pants gathered at the knee." Because the city's early Dutch settlers wore those pants, "New Yorkers" became known as "Knickerbockers." The Knickerbockers, more commonly "The Knicks" is the name of New York's NBA team.

In the 1500s, a corselet was something a soldier might wear, a piece of armor for the torso. The word comes from the French word for body. Several centuries later, the same word emerged and shortened to corset, to describe a combination of girdle and brassiere.

Drawers does not refer to where you store them, as in a chest of drawers. The word drawers has been used since the 16th century to refer to garments such as stockings, underpants, and pants. It comes from the verb draw used in the sense of pull, likely because you pull them up your legs.

The union suit gets its name by uniting the upper and lower pieces of underwear in one garment. Two-piece long johns are more common these days, and do not require a seat flap. Long johns are reputedly named after the late-19th-century heavyweight boxer John L. Sullivan, who wore a similar-looking garment in the ring. This explanation is uncertain and the true origin is unknown.

Singlet usually describes a sleeveless undershirt. It also refers to the one-piece suit a wrestler wears. It has only one thickness of cloth. A doublet is not underwear, but a lined jacket worn by men during the Renaissance.

What's in a Name, BVD

This men’s underwear maker was originally founded by a group of New Yorkers named Bradley, Voorhees, and Day to make women’s bustles. Eventually the trio branched out into knitted union suits for men, and their wares became so popular that “BVDs” has become a generic term for any underwear.