pants n.

1660s, kind of tights-like garment for men (consisting of breeches and stockings in one; originally a French fashion and execrated as such by late 17c. English writers), associated with Pantaloun,Pantaloon (1580s), the silly old man character in Italian comedy, who wore spectacles, slippers, and tight trousers over his skinny legs.

His name is from Italian Pantalone, from San Pantaleone, a Christian martyr who was a popular saint in Venice (Pantaloon in the comedies represents the Venetian). The name, a favorite one among the Venetians, is of Greek origin and means "all-compassionate" (Littré), or, according to Klein, Century Dictionary, etc., "entirely lion," perhaps in reference to the lion symbolic of St. Mark.

By 1798 the word was revived in reference to tight long trousers buttoned or tied below the knee (replacing knee-breeches), worn by men of fashion. These were gradually replaced by modern trousers, but the name persisted. Pants is a shortened form attested by 1840. The diminutive pantalettes for "loose drawers with frills at the bottoms of the legs, worn by young girls," is by 1834.

"bifurcated garment worn by men, covering the body and waist to the knees," c. 1200, a double plural (also breechen, and singular breech), from Old English brec "breeches," plural of broc "garment for the legs and trunk," from Proto-Germanic *brokiz (source also of Old Norse brok, Dutch broek, Danish brog, Old High German bruoh, German Bruch, obsolete since 18c. except in Swiss dialect), perhaps from PIE root *bhreg- "to break." The etymological notion would be of a garment "forked" or "split." The singular breech survived into 17c., but the word is now always used in the plural.

The Proto-Germanic word is a parallel form to Celtic *bracca, source (via Gaulish) of Latin braca (source of French braies, Italian braca, Spanish braga). Some propose that the Germanic word group is borrowed from Gallo-Latin, others that the Celtic was from Germanic, but OED writes that the Proto-Germanic noun "has all the markings of an original Teutonic word."

Classical bracae were part of the characteristic garb of Gauls and Orientals; they were not worn by Greeks or Romans until the end of the republic. After 1c. they came into use at first among military forces stationed in cold climates and were adopted generally toward the end of the empire, though they never seem to have been much in favor in Rome proper.

The expanded sense of "lower part of the body, part of the body covered by breeches, posterior" led to senses in childbirthing (1670s) and gunnery ("the part of a firearm behind the bore," 1570s). As the popular word for "trousers" in English, it was displaced in U.S. c. 1840 by pants. The Breeches Bible (Geneva Bible of 1560) is so called on account of rendition of Genesis iii.7 (already in Wycliffe) "They sewed figge leaues together, and made themselues breeches."