Meanings
- archaichistoricalpluralpoeticplural of hose (the old-fashioned garment; stockings)
Francis the Schoolboy Margaret, give me my hosen; dispatch I pray you.
2009, Jeffrey L. Forgeng, Daily Life in Elizabethan England5 more examples
These men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments.
1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Daniel 3:21And I hoped that in youth the good path may be chosen By each little man who may chance wear these hosen.
1877, Golden Hours, (Please provide the book title or journal name)[T]he people all wore hosen and shoon and smocks and jupes and jerkins and wimples.
1936, Norman Lindsay, The Flyaway Highway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 55It has crept up the leg and become hose, and it is made no longer of leather but of cloth. Gradually these hosen became longer and longer, until they joined at the top into one garment, which betrayed its dual origin by keeping the plural [...]
1979, George G. Coulton, Five centuries of religion: The last days of medieval monachism[...] and the shape of the horrible swollen members, that seem like to the malady of hernia, in the wrapping of their hosen, and eke the buttocks of them, [...]
2014, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems
- pluralplural onlyCoverings for the legs; trousers; pants.
At the court of the Kaiser I born was and bred ; and there my hosen and jerkin were made ; […]
1857, The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art5 more examples
Then I searched the pocket of my hosen and found a little knife, such as could be closed, which they had not chosen to take, [...]
1862, Gustav Freytag, Pictures of German Life in the XVth,XVIth, and XVIIth CenturiesThis figure actually wears mail hosen, but others substituted scale or else wore no armour on the legs at all.
1978, Ian Heath, Armies of Feudal Europe 1066-1300, →ISBN, page 209They differed in the length of the leg but were generally similar in the cut at the top. ... By 1770, they bought new hosen.
1990, Ellen J. Gehret, Rural Pennsylvania ClothingAnd the doublet is long enough it hid most of the blood-spattered part of my hosen and they were dark enough the blood didn't much show after I'd rubbed some dirt over them.
2004, Margaret Frazer, The Hunter's TaleThe invisible cord ... I followed him down a narrow path with a rippling lake of grain on each side, wheat stalks brushing my hosen.
2005, Adam McCune, Keith McCune, The Rats of Hamelin
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
- Old Englishhosan“hosen, leggings, trousers”
- Middle Englishhosen
- Englishhosen
From Middle English hosen, from Old English hosan (“hosen, leggings, trousers”), plural of hosa (“hose, legging, stocking”); reinforced by German Hosen (“trousers, pants”). Equivalent to hose + -en (plural ending).
More words from Middle English, Old English
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with hosen
All rhymes →Anagrams
Cite this entry
hosen. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hosen
“hosen.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hosen. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hosen,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hosen.
Source: hosen on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.