-pants

suffix

Used with adjectives ending in -y to form nicknames based on a negative quality of a person.

“bossypants, fancypants, smarty pants, greedy-pants, pouty pants”

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Meanings

suffix
  1. derogatoryinformalusuallyUsed with adjectives ending in -y to form nicknames based on a negative quality of a person.

    bossypants, fancypants, smarty pants, greedy-pants, pouty pants

    5 more examples

    [book title]

    1986, Babette Cole, Princess Smartypants, Hamish Hamilton, →ISBN

    We used to call her Miss Bossy Pants when she was a kid.

    1999, Eden Robinson, Monkey Beach: A Novel, Abacus, (cited from Houghton Mifflin/Mariner Books, 2002), p. 91

    You had to pull one of your stupid disappearing tricks because you were being a pouty-pants.

    2005, Lauren Myracle, Rhyme with Witches, Amulet Books, →ISBN, page 21

    Gee, maybe her name should be "Princess Demandy Pants".

    2012, April 21, Meghan McCarthy, "A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1" [television episode], My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

    Diplomats sharing the draft with each other said they were puzzled by the logic undergirding it. One U.S. diplomat described the draft to POLITICO as “bonkers crazypants.”

    2025 April 20, Felicia Schwartz, Nahal Toosi, Robbie Gramer, “‘Bonkers crazypants’: American diplomats shaken by reports of possible cuts”, in The Atlantic

Origin

Extracted from fancypants.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

-pants. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/-pants

MLA

“-pants.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/-pants. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “-pants,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/-pants.

Source: -pants on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.