trouserettes

alternative trouserette

1. historicalpluralplural onlyA baggy women's garment that covered each leg separately, elasticized at waist and ankle, used as a replacement for the petticoat; bloomers.

   Red trouserettes on waitresses cause stir

   1921 April 28, Buffalo Express, volume LXXVI, number 89, Buffalo, N.Y., page 2

   2 more examples

   ANYBODY who thinks that the suffragettes are going to take to trouserettes, anybody who expects to see a suffragette in trouserettes telling the world from a soap box on a street corner that taxation without representation is tyranny, has only to mention trouserettes to a few suffragettes to find out his or her mistake.

   1911 March 19, “No Trouser Skirts for Them: Suffragists Have No Use for Bifurcated Garments”, in The Sioux City Journal, page 6

   “We think our blue and brown smocks and trouserettes are as honorable and significant a uniform as that of the soldiers in khaki,” said one young woman who was engaged in the dangerous handling of cordite. All women who work on machinery wear trouserettes and many have had their hair cut short in the interest of safety and comfort.

   1918, The Textile Worker: Official Journal of the United Textile Workers of America, page 57