hosen

H4O1S1E1N1

noun

Coverings for the legs; trousers; pants.

UncommonScrabble 8

Meanings

noun
  1. 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 England
    5 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 3:21

    And 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 55

    It 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
nounhosen pl (plural only)
  1. 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 Art
    5 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 Centuries

    This 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 209

    They 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 Clothing

    And 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 Tale

    The 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

  1. Old Englishhosan“hosen, leggings, trousers”
  2. Middle Englishhosen
  3. 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).

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with hosen

All rhymes →

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

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

MLA

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

Chicago

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

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