Etymology

wet one's pants

Today it means: To wet oneself, to urinate in one's clothes while wearing them. Full definition →

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The story

The senses referring to laughing and being afraid are extensions from the literal (urination) sense; both involve an element of variably literal or figurative nature: they are generally figurative, but if one laughs hard enough or gets frightened badly enough, the wetting may sometimes happen literally.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.