英语词汇pants的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

pants; panties. Panties has become acceptable only in rela- tively recent years, despite the fact that the word has its roots in the name of a saint. St. Pantaleone, a Christian doctor who treated the poor without charge, was condemned to death by the Romans in a.d. 305, and miraculously survived six execu- tion attempts before his persecutors finally beheaded him. The courageous saint (Pantaleone means “all lion”) became patron saint of doctors and a martyr revered by the Venetians, his name all the more popular because so many boys were baptized in his honor. Probably for this reason, and because it was con- sidered comical to call a foolish character “all lion,” the saint’s name attached itself to the buffoon in the 15th-century comme- dia dell’arte, in which an emaciated, bespectacled old man called Pantaloon wore slippers and one-piece, skintight breech- es that bloused out above the knees and came to be known as pantaloons. Pantaloons later came to be a designation for trou- sers in general, the word introduced to America in the early 18th century and soon shortened to pants. Pants quickly re- placed trousers in American speech and its diminutive form, panties, was used to describe women’s underwear. In Britain, however, pants refers to men’s underwear and is not a synonym for trousers.

词汇	pants
词源	pants; panties. Panties has become acceptable only in rela- tively recent years, despite the fact that the word has its roots in the name of a saint. St. Pantaleone, a Christian doctor who treated the poor without charge, was condemned to death by the Romans in a.d. 305, and miraculously survived six execu- tion attempts before his persecutors finally beheaded him. The courageous saint (Pantaleone means “all lion”) became patron saint of doctors and a martyr revered by the Venetians, his name all the more popular because so many boys were baptized in his honor. Probably for this reason, and because it was con- sidered comical to call a foolish character “all lion,” the saint’s name attached itself to the buffoon in the 15th-century comme- dia dell’arte, in which an emaciated, bespectacled old man called Pantaloon wore slippers and one-piece, skintight breech- es that bloused out above the knees and came to be known as pantaloons. Pantaloons later came to be a designation for trou- sers in general, the word introduced to America in the early 18th century and soon shortened to pants. Pants quickly re- placed trousers in American speech and its diminutive form, panties, was used to describe women’s underwear. In Britain, however, pants refers to men’s underwear and is not a synonym for trousers.
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