skeleton suit

noun

An outfit for small boys, popular from about 1790 to the late 1820s, consisting of a tight coat or jacket buttoned to a pair of high-waisted trousers.

Meanings

nounskeleton suit (plural skeleton suits)

plural skeleton suits

  1. historicalAn outfit for small boys, popular from about 1790 to the late 1820s, consisting of a tight coat or jacket buttoned to a pair of high-waisted trousers.

    Although he could not have been less than eighteen or nineteen years old, and was tall for that age, he wore a skeleton suit, such as is usually put upon very little boys, and which, though most absurdly short in the arms and legs, was quite wide enough for his attenuated frame.

    1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby
Cite this entry
APA

skeleton suit. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/skeleton%20suit

MLA

“skeleton suit.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/skeleton%20suit. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “skeleton suit,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/skeleton%20suit.

Source: skeleton suit on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.