bloomers

Named after American women's-rights activist Amelia Bloomer (1818–1894).

bloomers pl (plural only, attributive bloomer)

1. (dated) Any of several forms of women’s divided garment for the lower body.
   • 1917, Edna Ferber, Fanny Herself‎:

     Fanny, knowing this, had made up her mind to go straight to Horn & Udell. Now, Horn & Udell are responsible for the bloomers your small daughter wears under her play frock, in place of the troublesome and extravagant petticoat of the old days.

   • c. 1920, Kathleen Thompson Norris, Sisters‎:

     Moreover, the family realized perfectly that Alix would have clipped her thick hair, and taken to bloomers or knickerbockers outright, […]

   • 1920, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 1, in Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, →OCLC:

     Yet so radioactive were her nerves […] that she was more energetic than any of the hulking young women who, with calves bulging in heavy-ribbed woolen stockings beneath decorous blue serge bloomers, thuddingly galloped across the floor of the “gym” in practise for the Blodgett Ladies' Basket-Ball Team.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     Ladies’ grey flannelette bloomers, three shillings a pair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, loved for ever, they say.

2. (informal) Women’s underpants with short legs; knickers or drawers.

• Bloomerism

• pantalettes

bloomers

1. plural of bloomer

• reblooms