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Knickerbockers   /nˈɪkərbˌɑkərz/   Listen
Knickerbockers

noun
1.
Trousers ending above the knee.  Synonyms: breeches, knee breeches, knee pants, knickers.






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"Knickerbockers" Quotes from Famous Books



... "I was in knickerbockers at the time," he said, "and introduced to the schoolboy public—The Schoolboy's Punch. It sounds strangely prophetic as I think of it now. The entire make-up of it was a la Punch, and it had its cartoon every week. At that time the Davenport Cabinet Trick was all the rage, and the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... frank, good-looking lads coloured through their bronzed skins, and each involuntarily clapped his hand to a guilty spot—that is to say, one covered a triangular hole in his knickerbockers and the other pressed together the sides of a long slit in his Norfolk jacket, and ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... overweening ambition about me. I could bear up if I never saw an improving book again. What I would like would be for some benevolent old millionaire to take a fancy to me, and adopt me as his heir. I feel cut out to be a country gentleman, and march about in gaiters and knickerbockers, looking after the property, don't you know, and interviewing my tenants. I'd be strict with them, but kind at the same time; look into all their grievances, and put them right whenever I could. I'd make it a model ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... impossible to procure a complete outfit in the mining town, and were forced to despatch a messenger to Lima. He returned in two days with mules, saddles, saddle-bags, boots, leather leggings, knickerbockers, woolen ponchos, and scores of other articles which he assured us were absolutely necessary for any degree of comfort. By the time we were ready to start we had a ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... hospitable planter, living in style and entertaining with liberality scarcely unequal to that which distinguished Virginia in bygone days. Such are still to be encountered, though not often. The Virginia gentleman has been elbowed out. Like the Knickerbockers of New York—most of whom have shaken the ashes from their pipes, and gone off—the old Virginia gentleman has disappeared—but been displaced by a different enemy from that which disturbed the cogitations of the honest Dutchman. While Mein Herr, happy and contented, sat in the door ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... that went on. He took an interest, that was it. You ought to see, he watched everything, and sometimes he'd plump out with things that were astonishing for a boy of his years. Only four and a half, too, and they reminded each other of the first day he put on knickerbockers; stood in front of the house on the sidewalk all day long with his hands in his pockets. The interest was directed from Vandover, they turned their backs, grouping themselves about the little boy. The burnisher's sister-in-law felt called upon to ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... with his hands in the pockets of an outing-jacket, matching his knickerbockers in color, he strolled to and fro near his sister, now encouraging Madame de Thomery, hesitating on the arm of her instructor, now describing scientific flourishes on the ice, in rivalry against the crosses dashed off by Madame de Lisieux and Madame ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... worse, a ring at the front-door bell followed almost immediately, and the maid ushered in a young man of pleasing appearance in a sweater and baggy knickerbockers who apologetically but firmly insisted on playing his ball where it lay, and, what with the shock of the lecturer's narrow escape and the spectacle of the intruder standing on the table and working away with a niblick, the afternoon's session ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... situation, for while the rest soon grew weary of the monotony, and lethargic with the heat, groaning aloud every time they had to seek the siding in order to let some great train of laden boats go by, he found fresh enjoyment in every stop, and in blouse and knickerbockers, with bare feet, paddled about on the moist banks, making friends with the half-clothed camel-drivers, whose patient beasts knelt so obediently to be loaded with the silt deposits taken from the bed of the canal, and collecting items ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... "He's in knickerbockers," said the other, doubtfully. "What does that mean? Ah, I see! They've got the broad arrow on them, and he is pointing to a jail. It's all gone—I can ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs

... loaded, talking to them about the farmer's wedding of the morning, for which the bells had been ringing fitfully all day, and had just burst out again. Such was the scene, through which, like a flash, spun a tricycle, from which a tiny curly-haired being in knickerbockers was barely saved by his mother's seizing him ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... wouldn't be any good as officers. This Artillery School had a violent way of sifting out a man's moral worth; you hadn't much conceit left by the end of it. I had not felt myself so paltry since the day when I was left at my first boarding-school in knickerbockers. ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson

... wall, while Moriarty lounged across to the store, and Martin went to speak to the High Priest at the door of the Sanctum Sanctorum. Then Martin mounted his horse, and rode away; and presently the tribesman, Jerry, brought a buggy and pair to the front door. Montgomery and Folkestone—the latter in knickerbockers—took their seats in the buggy, and whirled away down the horse-paddock fence. Then all was still, save for the faint pling-plong of a piano ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... teaching has had its effect. The fine bloom has too often been brushed from our girls' delicacy of thought. They can strut through the street in the daytime wearing a shirt-front, a cravat, a choker, a vest, and a man's hat, and carrying a cane. A few can flaunt themselves in bloomers and knickerbockers, and ride astride a bicycle. They ape men in everything except courtesy to women. But the result is not what was expected. These customs have introduced the chaperone, and have put an end to simple freedom between ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... Princess," said Jimmy, with his hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers; "she's only a ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... encountered an epidemic on the prairie frontier and had succumbed more than three score years ago. If she thought of any child at all, she thought doubtless of little Albert (now romping about in his first tweed knickerbockers), who would not die for many years, perhaps, and who was like enough to be ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... was wearing a yellow silk frock embroidered with pink posies and covered with gold spangles. On her head was a lovely orange velvet cap; and a starched muslin tucker covered her little arms. Tyltyl was dressed in a red jacket and blue knickerbockers, both of velvet; and of course he wore the wonderful ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc

... the bedroom, emptied the battered kitbag, and began to dress. He put on heavy tan walking shoes, gray woollen stockings, gray knickerbockers, gray flannel shirt, and a Norfolk jacket minus ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... knickerbockers, and has retained all sorts of littlenesses and prejudices which older civilizations have long since relegated to the mental lumber room. An equivalent to this point of view you will find in England or France only in the ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... killing himself with drink before we came away. He'd had a shock to his nerves, that's what brought it on. He was ordered to Europe as his one chance. Somebody had to go with him, somebody he'd mind, and there wasn't anybody he did mind but me. I've known him since he was a little thing in knickerbockers, that high. So we fixed it that I was to go out and look after Binky, and Binky's mother—he's her only son—was coming out too, to look after me. We cared for appearances as much as you do. Well, the day before we sailed ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... dear Bill, it is just as you imagine. The driver was my companion of the Saxon Cross Hotel. He recognized me at once as I turned to enter the Club. He really was a big man and he looked much bigger in his long motoring overall than in his knickerbockers. 'Great Scott!' he exclaimed. 'It's you! Do come in. I say, you chaps,' he called. 'Here's a bit of luck. A friend of mine,' I was introduced, and he towered over me smiling, his great hook nose dividing his ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... displaying the cords of his throat to advantage. He was well bronzed by the sun, and the heavy crop of hair, on which he wore a visorless round cap, was crisp and of a dull gold color. He really was a good-looking young man, and in his knickerbockers and golf stockings Janice thought he seemed very ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... foaming rapids and eddying pools, along the four miles of the Branch, brought him into a state of mind that was thoroughly cheerful, not to say exhilarated. There was Brackett's Camp on the point above the Forks; and there was the veteran painter-angler himself, with his white beard and his knickerbockers, standing on the shore to wave a salutation as the canoe shot by the point. There was the main river, rushing down with full waters from the northwest, and roaring past the island. There was the club-house among the ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... Englischer Hof at Pontresina looked decidedly sleepy and misty at five o'clock on an August morning, when two sturdy British holiday-seekers, in knickerbockers and regular Alpine climbing rig, sat drinking their parting cup of coffee in the salle-a-manger, before starting to make the ascent of the Piz Margatsch, one of the tallest and by far the most difficult among the peaks of the Bernina range. There are few prettier villages in the ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... one shoulder like a sack, and under the other arm a wooden cage containing a grey squirrel. It was a December night in London, and the Southern lad had nothing to shelter his little body from the Northern cold but his short velveteen jacket, red waistcoat, and knickerbockers. He was going home after a long day in Chelsea, and, conscious of something fantastic in his appearance, and of doubtful legality in his calling, he was dipping into side streets in order to escape the laughter of the London boys and the ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... the two boys happened to be alone in the nursery, the nurse being temporarily absent from it. Edward was now a tall, slender, handsome boy in knickerbockers; Reginald a timid little fellow, several years younger—rendered timid by Edward's perpetual tyranny, which he might not resent. Edward was quiet enough this evening; he felt ill and shivery, and sat close to the fire. Casting his eyes upwards, he espied ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... white. We should say now they looked very queer, and unmistakably Dutch. You sometimes see this attire among the new immigrants. But there were no little Fauntleroy boys at that period with their velvet jackets and knickerbockers, flowing ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... I discovered that a namesake of mine was the contractor for the Thames Embankment, which was built when I was in knickerbockers. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... last, and with my little box corded up, with Mrs Hudson as an escort, and a pair of brand-new knickerbockers upon my manly person, I started off from my uncle's house in the coach for Stonebridge, with ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... long coat and full bloomers. No one is wearing that style, now. Everything is mannish coats and tight knickerbockers," ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... palmed off on the public as "the best artist procurable"? He scarcely seems to possess ordinary intelligence. I had the honour of being inadvertently presented to him, and he asked me, should I write anything about Bayreuth, to say that he objected very much to the Englishmen who came in knickerbockers—in bicycle costume. When I mildly suggested that if they came without knickerbockers or the customary alternative he would have better reason to complain, he asserted that he and his family had a great respect for the ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... the afternoon, you may see an artist there painting water-colors of the scenery. Even if he were not painting, you could not help knowing him for an artist, because he wears a black velvet jacket and knickerbockers, and a soft slouch hat, and has a curled black mustache and pointed beard; there is no mistaking him; and at a given moment, after he has been working long enough, he puts above his sketch the sign, "For Sale," as artists always do, and then, if you want a masterpiece, you go down a few steps ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... roan horse followed the dogs, galloping so wildly that when his rider halted him his hoofs tore up the turf as he slid. A girl rode him. She was mounted astride, and Presson had to look twice at her to make sure she was a girl, for she wore knickerbockers and gaiters, and her copper-red hair curled so crisply that it seemed ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... far as to say that "Sunday" is what you might call exactly rowdy, but er... but... er... Let me illustrate. If a man says, "It's a beautiful Sunday morning," like enough he has on red-and-green stockings, baggy knickerbockers, a violet-and-purple sweater, a cap shaped like a milk-roll, and is smoking a pipe. He very likely carries a bagful of golf-sticks, or is pumping up his bicycle. But if a man says, "This beautiful Sabbath morn," you know ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood

... corner of the road which was overshaded by a huge chestnut-tree, he suddenly came face to face with the Reverend Putwood Leveson, who, squatted on the hank by the roadside, with his grand-pianoforte legs well exposed to view in tight brown knickerbockers and grey worsted stockings, was bending perspiringly over his recumbent bicycle, mending something which had, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... post-office halfway between the two. At Crummie-Toddie they had to send nine miles for their letters and newspapers. At Killancodlem there was lawn-tennis and a billiard-room and dancing every night. The costumes of the ladies were lovely, and those of the gentlemen, who were wonderful in knickerbockers, picturesque hats and variegated stockings, hardly less so. And then there were carriages and saddle-horses, and paths had been made hither and thither through the rocks and hills for the sake of the scenery. Scenery! To hear Mr. Dobbes utter the single ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... out, Majendie carrying the luncheon basket and Anne's coat. He had changed, and appeared in the Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers, and cap he had worn at Scarby. The pang that struck her at the sight of them was softened by her practical perception of their fitness for the adventure. They became him, too, and she had memory of the charm he had once worn for her with ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... in this world when a healthy boy is happy. When he is put into knickerbockers, for instance, and 'comes a man to-day,' as my little Jim used to say. When they're cooking something at home that he likes. When the 'sandy-blight' or measles breaks out amongst the children, or the teacher or his wife falls dangerously ill—or dies, it doesn't matter which—'and ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... youth, "you did bore it into him fine! And he didn't dare put a hand on you, either. That was queer, for, my word! he's strong as Sandow. He handled me as easy as if I wasn't out of knickerbockers." ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... next to him, wore brown knickerbockers and long stockings, a red and blue plaid, and a ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... Evil One to oppose him. Wherefore nurse is propitiated, failing the protection of the glorified creature just gone to her grand dinner in a cloud of lace and a blaze of jewels; and the first lesson taught the youthful Christian in short frocks or knickerbockers is not to carry tales down stairs, and by no means to let mamma know what nurse desires should ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... by a voice in his ear. Jumping up with a start, he beheld a crowd of people watching him, men in Sunday coats, men in shirt sleeves, ladies in light dresses, boys in knickerbockers and Norfolks, girls in pinafores, Chinamen in coats of many colours, many of the ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... to dance. There was a particularly painstaking little boy in a white silk shirt and black velvet knickerbockers, very tight in places, who danced assiduously, looking neither to the right nor to the left. "Right leg, To-mus, left leg, To-mus!" came in stentorian tones from a Fraulein in the corner, who suited her actions ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss

... of this practical dress reform on the part of the belles of New York, the Boston Daily Globe recently observed editorially: The great question now agitating the fashionable women of Fifth Avenue is: "Do you wear knickerbockers?" ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... seems glad to see us. Two ladies asked about Jill, and one of the girls has got some shells all ready for her, Gerty Somebody, and her mother is so pretty and jolly, I like her ever so much. They sit at our table, and Wally is the boy, younger than I am, but very pleasant. Bacon is the fellow in knickerbockers; just wish you could see what stout legs he's got! Cox is the chap for me, though: we are going fishing to-morrow. He's got a sweet-looking mother, and a sister for you, Jill. Now, then, do come on, I'll take ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... right-hand turning would bring me more quickly to the cliff-face from which I had heard the voices. After I had made my choice, you may be sure that I went on hands and knees, feeling the ground in front of me. I went forward very, very slowly, with the wet mud coming through my knickerbockers, and the cold drops sometimes falling on my neck from the roof. At last I saw a little glimmer of light, and there was a turning to the left; and just beyond the turning there was a chamber in the rock, all ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... presumptuous in a young republic, as though we were strutting around, singing, 'I'm getting a big boy now.' I felt like saying, 'Oh, come off, and stop playing you're a world power, and get back into your red sash and knickerbockers, or you'll get spanked!' It seems as though we must be such a lot of amateurs. But when I went over the side of the New York I felt like kneeling down on her deck and begging every jackey to kick me. I felt about as useless as a fly on a locomotive-engine. Amateurs! ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... not so easy to get down by the bank without accidents, and before they reached the "dressing-room," frocks and knickerbockers already told a tale. ...
— The Christmas Fairy - and Other Stories • John Strange Winter

... hear all about it. Then Frank took his way to Jermyn Street, and went with Mr. Goodenough to Silver's, where an outfit suited for the climate of Central Africa was ordered. The clothes were simple. Shirts made of thin soft flannel, knickerbockers and Norfolk jackets of tough New Zealand flax, with gaiters of the ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... wish to refuse him after all the encouragement she had given him. On this occasion he put on no pink shirt or shiny boots, being deterred from doing so by a remembrance of Captain Bellfield's ridicule; but, nevertheless, he dressed himself with considerable care. He clothed his nether person in knickerbockers, with tight, leathern, bright-coloured gaiters round his legs, being conscious of certain manly graces and symmetrical proportions which might, as he thought, stand him in good stead. And he put on a new shooting-coat, the buttons on which were elaborate, and a wonderful waistcoat ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... "the humble individual who now addressed him was once under Mrs. Pipchin's charge;" and, similarly, the obscure writer of these papers was once under Miss Leech's. Her school supplied the originals of all the little boys, whether greedy or gracious, grave or gay, on foot or on pony-back, in knickerbockers or in nightshirts, who figure so frequently in Punch between 1850 and 1864; and one of the pleasantest recollections of those distant days is the kindness with which the great artist used to receive us when, as the supreme reward of exceptionally good conduct, we were taken to see him in his studio ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... a very good impression of him," laughed her husband. "We're on our wedding trip, you know,"—he blushed slightly— "and mother made us promise we'd stop in to see the old man. He hasn't seen me since I wore knickerbockers, and we had a great time making him understand who we were. Then he said that he hoped we liked Washington, and went ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... Craven, striding along in knickerbockers beside her, felt the animal charm of her as he had never felt it in London. She had thrust her gloves away in some hidden pocket. Her right hand grasped a stick firmly. The white showed at the ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... finished putting on her clothes, but, as her dress buttoned up the back, she had to come in and ask Bunny to fasten it for her. This he was ready to do as soon as he had pulled on his stockings and little knickerbockers. ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope

... inn here with beautiful scenery all around, and the lovely Loch Rannoch stretches away for eleven miles. Everything is just as Scotch as it can be. Even the English people who come here put on knickerbockers and bonnets. I have never been anywhere else where it is considered the correct thing to dress like the natives, and I will say here that it is very few of the natives that wear kilts. That sort of thing seems to be given up ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton

... room in which the two generals were awaiting him, surrounded by their brilliantly-uniformed staffs, he presented a strange contrast to the men whose lives he held in the hollow of his hand. He was dressed in a dark tweed suit, with Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, met by long shooting boots, just as though he was fresh from the moors, instead of from the battlefield on which the fate of the world was being decided. General le Gallifet advanced to meet him with a puzzled look of half-recognition ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... fossilised Norfolk biffin, and Miss Sheila Muldooney, of Skibbereen, a copy of The Skibbereen Eagle containing the historic announcement that it had its eye on the Tsar of RUSSIA. Sir GEORGE ALEXANDER sends a daguerreotype of himself in knickerbockers with side whiskers and moustache, and Mr. BERNARD SHAW the first interview with himself that he ever wrote. It appeared in The Freeman's Journal in the "seventies" and is illustrated with six portraits, in one of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various

... services till the next morning. A little later the valet had occasion to cross the hall and was somewhat astonished to see his master quietly letting himself out at the front door. He had taken off his evening clothes, and was dressed in a Norfolk coat and knickerbockers, and wore a low brown hat. The valet had no reason to suppose that Lord Argentine had seen him, and though his master rarely kept late hours, thought little of the occurrence till the next morning, when he knocked at the bedroom door at a quarter to nine as usual. He received ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... horse which had carried me, on the night of the coronation, back from the hunting-lodge to Strelsau. I carried a revolver in the saddle and my sword. I was covered with a large cloak, and under this I wore a warm, tight-fitting woollen jersey, a pair of knickerbockers, thick stockings, and light canvas shoes. I had rubbed myself thoroughly with oil, and I carried a large flask of whisky. The night was warm, but I might probably be immersed a long while, and it was necessary to take every precaution against ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... well-known actor passed, elaborately unconscious of the attention he excited: sometimes he wore patent leather boots, a coat with an astrakhan collar, and carried a silver-knobbed stick; and sometimes, looking as though he had come from a day's shooting, he strolled in knickerbockers, and ulster of Harris tweed, and a tweed hat on the back of his head. The sun shone on the blue sea, and the blue sea was ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... bloomers; chaqueta^, songtag [G.], tablier^. pants, trousers, trowsers^; breeches, pantaloons, inexpressibles^, overalls, smalls, small clothes; shintiyan^; shorts, jockey shorts, boxer shorts; tights, drawers, panties, unmentionables; knickers, knickerbockers; philibeg^, fillibeg^; pants suit; culottes; jeans, blue jeans, dungarees, denims. [brand names for jeans] Levis, Calvin Klein, Calvins, Bonjour, Gloria Vanderbilt. headdress, headgear; chapeau [Fr.], crush hat, opera hat; kaffiyeh; sombrero, jam, tam-o-shanter, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... that's not true!" An emphatic masculine voice intervened, and round the corner of the clump of trees beneath which the two girls had taken refuge, swung a man's tall, well-setup figure clad in knickerbockers and a Norfolk coat. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... had seen before from the window of the Galloway inn—one lean, sharp, and dark, the other comfortable and smiling. The third had the look of a countryman—a vet, perhaps, or a small farmer. He was dressed in ill-cut knickerbockers, and the eye in his head was as bright ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan

... further. He set it down to his threadbare coat and rustic boots. It was in no sweet mood that he strode up Hoe Terrace, eyeing the numbers above the doors, and halted at length to knock out his pipe before a house with an unpainted area-railing, to which a small boy in ragged knickerbockers was engaged in attaching with a string the tail of ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... "that but for my luck I might be at the inn! Heaven above us, I might even have been leaving this enchanting spot!" He looked down at the stream. A man was fishing there, a tall, well-made fellow in knickerbockers and a soft felt hat of the sort sometimes called Tyrolean. "Good luck to you, my boy!" nodded the happy and therefore ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... both in a state of unprecedented physical fitness. And such skirts as Ann Veronica had had when she entered the valley of Saas were safely packed away in the hotel, and she wore a leather belt and loose knickerbockers and puttees—a costume that suited the fine, long lines of her limbs far better than any feminine walking-dress could do. Her complexion had resisted the snow-glare wonderfully; her skin had only deepened its natural ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... young matron,—still young despite the cares incidental to the possession of a lively brood, among whom there seems no higher ambition than to emulate the exploits of a certain Master Sandy Ray, who is in pristine knickerbockers and perennial mischief. "Jack says," writes this proud mamma, "that with all his pranks that blessed little rascal is his father all over, fearless, truthful, and generous, and Captain Ray fairly idolizes ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... in knickerbockers, by name Harry Rawdon, the son of an officer in the English army, had attained a peculiar kind of notoriety in the school, by ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... house whom she had heard of but had never seen. When he was out of her sight, she ejected the thought of him from her mind, so that when her eyes fell on him again it was a shock. He did not become more seemly to look at. Indeed, he was worse when he grew out of frocks, for knickerbockers disclosed that he had very thin legs and large, knotty knees. He had a dull stare, and there seemed always to be a ring of food round his mouth. He had no pride. When she took the children on a railway journey Richard would ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... serious trouble with the law, and it was equally impossible to obtain the same degree of comfort for his young by packing them into a four room flat. And then the church-mouse doesn't have to think about shoes and stockings and mittens and ear-muffs, to say nothing of frocks and knickerbockers. So he who speaks of another as being "as poor as a church-mouse" does a grave injustice to a really prosperous creature, despite the fact that it lives in a church and is employed in the rather dubious occupation of supporting ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... it seemed more probable, after all, that the girl had escaped through her stepmother. In which case the business might be hushed up yet, and the evil hour of explanation with his wife indefinitely postponed. Then abruptly the image of that lithe figure in grey knickerbockers went frisking across his mind again, and he reverted to his blasphemies. He started up in a gusty frenzy with a vague idea of pursuit, and incontinently sat down again with a concussion that stirred the bar below to its depths. He banged ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... group, or another, will rise and form a grinning row while a snap-shot is taken; now they recline again; now they scamper down to see the hydroplane come in; now they return, drop to the sand, and idly watch women bathers tripping past them toward the water. Here comes a girl in silken knickerbockers, with cuffs buttoning over her stockings like the cuffs of riding breeches. Heads turn simultaneously as she goes by. Here is a tomboy in a jockey cap; here two women wearing over their bathing suits brilliant colored satin wraps which flutter ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... travelling to the North. He is a very good fellow, but a little hasty, and a little too much disposed to think everyone wrong but himself. Opposite us was a man hidden behind a newspaper, all that was visible of him being a huge pair of legs in knickerbockers, between which was a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various

... entered the salon, with his usual unceremoniousness, and beheld an odd spectacle. The prim chairs had been piled on the couch by the wall, the table pushed into a corner, and on the vacant space, Elodie, in her old dancer's practising kit, bodice and knickerbockers, once loose but now skin tight to grotesqueness, and Andrew in under vest and old grey flannels, were perspiringly engaged with pith balls in the elementary art of the juggler. Elodie, on beholding him, clutched a bursting corsage with both hands, uttered ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... evening at the parish house, I repaired to my rooms immediately after tea and proceeded to attire myself in the costume, standing meantime before my mirror to study the effect. In the main, Miss Peebles had adhered to the original design, except that the nether garments or knickerbockers were of rather a light and conspicuous shade of blue—I believe this colour tone is known vernacularly as robin blue—and she had seen fit to garnish their outer seams and the cuffs of the blouse with rows of white buttons of a pearl-like material and rather ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... wear knickerbockers the preparations for paddling are very simple; but girls are not so fortunate. Lewis Carroll (who wrote Alice in Wonderland) took their difficulties so seriously that whenever he went to the seaside to stay he used to have with him a packet of safety-pins for the use of any children that ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... very big herself, but the boy was not quite as big as Trot. He was thin, with a rather pale complexion, and his blue eyes were round and earnest. He wore a blouse waist, a short jacket, and knickerbockers. Under his arm he held an old umbrella that was as tall as he was. Its covering had once been of thick, brown cloth, but the color had faded to a dull drab except in the creases, and Trot thought it looked very old-fashioned and common. The handle, though, ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum

... this, the travellers were obliged to sail directly below some high overhanging rocks, from the top of one of which a particularly odious little boy, dressed in rose-colored knickerbockers, and with a pewter plate upon his head, threw an enormous pumpkin at the boat, by ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear

... small boy came walking along the path—an urchin of nine or ten. The child, who was diminutive for his years, had an aged expression of countenance, a pale complexion, and sharp little features. He was dressed in knickerbockers, with red stockings, which displayed his poor little spindle-shanks; he also wore a brilliant red cravat. He carried in his hand a long alpenstock, the sharp point of which he thrust into everything that he ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James

... fair-haired boy in knickerbockers, who chewed gum with reckless insouciance and indulged in cool satirical comment on his companion's amateur efforts, yesterday directed a daring holdup of the Chicago Art and Silver Shop at 438 Lincoln Parkway, ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... doors of the houses seemed to open of themselves; men were going in, men were coming out. The negroes looked more lustrous and light-hearted than ever; the Paddies, cleaner and more bothered; the regular Knickerbockers, to the manner born, were, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... also a voluminous writer, who worked with Irving in the Salmagundi essays and whose historical novels, such as The Dutchman's Fireside (1831), are still mildly interesting. [Footnote: Irving, Cooper and Bryant are sometimes classed among the Knickerbockers; but the work of these major writers is national rather than local or sectional, and will ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... said Phil, alert and ready. Then he kicked off his boots, which were stout—and every ounce mattered when one took to walking on muskegs; but as his clothing consisted of only a flannel shirt and serge knickerbockers there were no clothes ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... you think," added Peggy, who was busy putting a patch in Silvio's knickerbockers, "Guy Vyvian turned up out of nowhere and called this afternoon, bad manners to him for a waster. When he found you were out, Hilary, he asked where was Rhoda; he'd no notion of sitting down to listen to me talking. Rhoda was out at work too, ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... down his left cheek, along the throat to the shoulder. He was not what you might call naked, a naked man, such as I have seen since in the hot countries, would have looked a nobleman beside him. He wore a pair of dirty linen knickerbockers, all frayed into ribbons at the knees, a pair of strong hide slippers bound to his ankles by strips of leather, a part of a filthy red shirt without sleeves, a hat stolen from a scarecrow, nothing else whatever, ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... blackberries. She had been thinking of a certain blackberry pie, which thought naturally induced reflection on Bryce Cardigan and reminded Shirley of her first visit to the Giants under the escort of a boy in knickerbockers. She had a very vivid remembrance of that little amphitheatre with the sunbeams falling like a halo on the plain tombstone; she wondered if the years had changed it all and decided that there could not possibly be any harm in indulging a ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... two, for instance. Look at me! Everybody calls me rash and impetuous, and Mort is always lecturing me for it, and it's always my way to rush head-first into anything that comes along, and here I've been making love, in the regular, orthodox fashion, to a girl I've known ever since I wore knickerbockers, and playing propriety and all that to my prospective father-in-law; and now see Mort! the most precise, deliberate fellow you ever saw, never says or does anything that isn't exactly suited to the occasion, you know; and here he goes and tumbles head over heels in love with a pretty girl ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... itself may favour the occurrence of voluptuous sensations. In addition, we have to think of the clothing. I pointed out before that breeches which pressed on the perineum sometimes led to the practice of masturbation. Hence this article of dress, breeches, knickerbockers, or trousers, should be made loose and comfortable. With regard to the proposal to do away with breeches altogether in the case of children, a recommendation which, as previously explained, has been made by several authorities, ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... by one, like foolish sheep—without a sheep's general utility. Mr. Smith, who is short, fat, and podgy, dresses exactly like Mr. Brown, who is tall, muscular, and well proportioned. Mr. Smith would not look so dreadful if he wore a coat well "skirted" below the waist, with tight-fitting knickerbockers and stockings. Mr. Brown's muscles and fine proportions are very nearly lost in a coat and trousers, which only make his muscular development look like fat and his fine proportions merely breadth without much shape. ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... out of Italy. I had taken him to Munich to have some singing lessons. After the war came on we had to get from Munich to Naples in order to sail at all. We were told that we could take only hand luggage on the railways, but I took nine trunks and Peppo. I dressed Peppo in knickerbockers, made him brush his curls down over his ears like doughnuts, and carry a little violin-case. It took us eleven days to reach Naples. I got my trunks through purely by personal persuasion. Once at Naples, I had a frightful time getting Peppo on the ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... landing-stage opposite the gate, its hoarse whistle and the churning noise alongside all unnoticed, had landed a small bunch of local passengers who were dispersing their several ways. Only a specimen of early tourist in knickerbockers, conspicuous by a brand-new yellow leather glass-case, hung about for a moment, scenting something unusual about these four people within the rusty iron gates of what looked the grounds run wild of an unoccupied private house. Ah! If he ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... like mine of thick wool. A khaki-colored shirt should be worn, or, as a better substitute, a khaki jacket with many pockets. Very light underclothes are good. If one's knees and legs are unfortunately tender, knickerbockers with long stockings and leggings should be worn; ordinary trousers tend to bind the knee. Better still, if one's legs will stand the exposure, are shorts, not coming down to the knee. A kilt would probably ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... see every compartment door fly open and everybody's friend appear with tea-kettles for hot water in one hand and tea-caddies in the other, and to see people who hated boiled eggs buying them, because they were about all that looked clean; and to see staid Englishmen in knickerbockers and monocles with loops of Italian bread over each tweed arm, and in both hands flasks of cheap red Italian wine—oh, so good! and only costing fifty centimes, but put up in those lovely straw-woven decanters ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... made of a thick and good cloth. Let the men have short trousers—or, as we call them, knickerbockers—with leather gaiters and lace boots. The shoes of your soldier are altogether a mistake. I will bring you a sketch, tomorrow; and you will see that it is ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... slighting remarks from Captain Thorn's correspondence, to which Mr. Irving as an historian gives currency, has somewhat blinded my excellent friend to the tone of banter, so characteristic of the chronicler of the Knickerbockers, in which all these particulars are given, more as traits of the character of the stern old sea-captain, with his hearty contempt for land-lubbers and literary clerks, than as a dependable account of the persons on board ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... steepness. Yes, and if the call to martyrdom came, I should not despair of finding men who would show themselves equal to it, even in this commonplace age, and among people who wear Highland cloaks and knickerbockers. The martyr's strength would come with the martyr's day. It is because there is no call for it now, that people look ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... appeared, however. A big, broad man approached him, clad in a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers and a red waistcoat with gaudy brass buttons. He had entered at the lower mouth of the quarries and was proceeding to the northern exit, whence the little streamlet that fed the pools ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... promised that there should be no severity, and Herriot had come. Greystock brought with him two guns, two fishing-rods, a man-servant, and a huge hamper from Fortnum and Mason's. Arthur Herriot, whom the attorneys had not yet loved, brought some very thick boots, a pair of knickerbockers, together with Stone and Toddy's "Digest of the Common Law." The best of the legal profession consists in this;—that when you get fairly at work you may give over working. An aspirant must learn everything; but a man may make his fortune at it, and know almost nothing. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... but I was afraid of causing comment. At the new and large boarding school which I entered in the fall my most lustful dreams and ejaculations were concerned with standing this little boy on the footboard of a bed, taking down his knickerbockers, and performing fellatio on him. But I dreamed also of natural coitus. I fell in love with the handsome, 12-year-old son of the aged headmaster. The boy, O., sat next me at the table, and I never tired ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... young man, Rose," said Frances flippantly. "Really, the dandy has surpassed himself. Knickerbockers and a Norfolk jacket, if you please! Why, actually a horse! He is going out to ride. This it is to be a counter-jumper in these ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... other half knickerbockers. Yes - frightfully. Do stand still - you're only tightening the ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... than Mutimer; his countenance indicated shrewdness and knowledge of the world. He was dark and well-featured, his glossy black hair was parted in the middle, his moustache of the cut called imperial, his beard short and peaked. He wore a canvas jacket, a white waistcoat and knickerbockers; at his throat a blue necktie fluttered loose. When Hubert's name was announced by the servant, this gentleman stopped midway in a sentence, took his pipe from his lips, and looked ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... end of the rope. Then he blew the whistle and the rest was easy. Nevertheless, when the paling came into sight and he felt Robert's arms under his shoulders, he reeled over towards the seat and lay there, his clothes caked in red mud, the knees of his knickerbockers cut, blood on his hands and forehead, breathless. Robert forced brandy down his throat, however, and in a moment or two he was ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... her questions tremblingly, for she feared the stern, strange face of the boy in knickerbockers. She had seen him playing and shouting in the square on other days, and the change was so great that she felt death alone could have wrought it. But he answered evenly that 'Geraldine was just the same,' and was ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... the wall. We do not like him very much, but we let him play with us sometimes, because his father is dead, and you must not be unkind to orphans, even if their mothers are alive. Albert is always very tidy. He wears frilly collars and velvet knickerbockers. I can't think ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit

... a little more slowly than the air-ship had done, and remained suspended a hundred feet or so above her after she had reached the ground. Swarms of human figures but of more than human stature, clad in tunics and trousers or knickerbockers, came out of the glass-domed palaces from all sides into the park. They were nearly all of the same stature, and there appeared to be no difference whatever between the sexes. Their dress was absolutely plain; there was no attempt at ornament or ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... did not stop with his food; they extended to his clothes—everything he used, in fact. His baggy knickerbockers ended in leather leggins to protect his pipe-stem shanks; his shirts buttoned all the way down in front and went on like a coat; he wore health flannels by day and a health shirt at night ("Just like my old Aunt Margaret's wrapper," whispered Marny ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... exercise, and by constantly furbishing up his regulation plume (it is unnecessary to observe that, as a hatter, he is in a cock's- feather corps), is resigned, and uncomplaining. On a Saturday, when he closes early and gets his Knickerbockers on, he is even cheerful. I am gratefully particular in this reference to him, because he is my ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... he strode down Broadway to the "Evening Post" office, suggested little more than a vigorous and somewhat radical editor of an increasingly prosperous Democratic newspaper. There was nothing of the Fringed Gentian or Yellow Violet about him. Like so many of the Knickerbockers, Bryant was an immigrant to New York; in fact, none of her adopted men of letters have represented so perfectly the inherited traits of the New England Puritan. To understand his long, and honorable public life it is necessary to know something ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... stowed away in the corner of a large chest, side by side with jerseys, caps, knickerbockers, and other football requisites, as a remnant of the glorious game, my master sometimes visits me to think over the past, and I often hear him say that, although he does not play now, he still goes to see some ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... did. They wouldn't have thought of it in a thousand years. Performers usually are too well satisfied with themselves to think there's anything worthwhile except what they've been doing since they came out of knickerbockers. How'd you ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... have admitted that there was but one man then living who could have created and peopled the vast and humorous world of the Knickerbockers; that all the learning of Oxford and Cambridge together would not enable a man to draw the whimsical portrait of Ichabod Crane, or to outline the fascinating legend of Rip Van Winkle; while Europe was full of scholars of more learning ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... stood in clearings adjoining, and furnished us with three bushmen as guides and assistants. I must say, they were the most picturesque of the party, being all handsome men, dressed in red flannel shirts and leathern knickerbockers and gaiters; they had fine beards, and wore "diggers' hats," a head-dress of American origin—a sort of wide-awake made of plush, capable of being crushed into any shape, and very becoming. All were armed with ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... sturdy, bearded man in black knickerbockers and clerical hat, the rector of the Crimean Chapel in Constantinople—a Cambridge and Church of England man, and a one-time dweller in the wilds of Kurdistan, who, though not called, had volunteered to ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... Gravosa, the port of Ragusa, still hidden by an intervening tongue of land. It was a gay scene by the quay, where native coasting ships were unloading their queer cargoes. Dark-faced porters in rags carried on their shoulders enormous burdens; men in loose knickerbockers, embroidered shirts, and funny little turbans lounged about, and stared at us as if they were every-day people and we extraordinary. And the setting for the lively picture was the deeply-indented bay, surrounded with quaintly pretty houses among vineyards and olive ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... been recorded, had a brother in Paris who managed the Hotel du Soleil et de l'Ecosse (strange conjuncture), a flourishing third-rate hostelry in the neighbourhood of the Halles Centrales. Thither flocked sturdy Britons in knickerbockers, stockings, and cloth caps, Teutons with tin botanizing boxes (for lunch transportation), and American school-marms realizing at last the dream of their modest and laborious lives. Accommodation ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... Meakim!" Holcombe said, gayly, with the spirit of the night still upon him. "I've been having adventures." He laughed, and stooped to brush the dirt from his knickerbockers and stockings. "I went up to the palace to see the town by moonlight, and tried to find my way back alone, and fell ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... self-possession she could only regard him with mute gratitude. She saw that he was young and well-built, though lean of features, but with frank, healthy eyes. He was not at all bad-looking. Also she observed that he was neatly garbed in puttees and knickerbockers, and she quickly appraised him as the usual type of Easterner come into the valley to spend the winter. Then she suddenly remembered her hair. Woman-like, she hastily gathered it up into a knot at the ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... of a wealthy middle-aged nut, with faultless knickerbockers and a gift for lucubrated epigrams, preferring to throw in her lot (platonically) with a young and penniless social reformer, we took no notice of those who feared a scandal ("scandals are not what they were," as she said), nor of the girl's assertion that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various

... out strong on these occasions, with ''ampers of 'am-sandwiches, bottled porter and so on, don't you know?' all in fine style. Even the stout doctor donned his knickerbockers and grey hose, unfurled his Japanese umbrella, and, with a pretty niece on either arm, disported himself like ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... down to the breakfast table attired in tweeds of a rather violent pattern, knickerbockers and spats. He wore a plaid shirt with turnover cuffs, a gay scarf and a handkerchief just showing a neat triangle of the same color at his upper coat pocket. This handkerchief, he informed me airily, was his "show-er." He kept the "blow-er" in his ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs



Words linked to "Knickerbockers" :   trouser, codpiece, buckskins, plural, britches, knee pants, plural form, trunk hose, knickers, pant, breeches, plus fours, knee breeches



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