Word.ws English Dictionary

canion

canion noun: one of a pair of fitted tubes of cloth worn in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries below short trunk hose and above stockings to cover the leg in between them, sometimes joined to the hose (sometimes reduced to ornamental rolls terminating the legs of the hose), and sometimes joined to each other as breeches worn under the hose. Also the obsolete form of canyon.

Noun

canion (plural canions)

  1. (historical, in plural, often) One of a pair of fitted tubes of cloth worn in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries below short trunk hose and above stockings to cover the leg in between them, sometimes joined to the hose (sometimes reduced to ornamental rolls terminating the legs of the hose), and sometimes joined to each other as breeches worn under the hose.
    • Varieties in nether garments introduced during this decade included 'Venetians' and trunk-hose with canion. These introductions, however, did not oust the now familiar trunk-hose which remained in favour until […]1950, Jack Eric Morpurgo, Life Under the Tudors
    • […] playing a decorated upper hose or canion beneath on the thigh (510C, H).1975, Doreen Yarwood, European Costume: 4000 Years of Fashion, Larousse Kingfisher Chambers

Also used as

canion is also the obsolete form of canyon.

Examples of canion in a sentence

  • Collins herself to be wearing what I should imagine are meant to be canion and hose, rather than bloomers as you describe them.2011, Charlotte Bingham, Debutantes: (Debutantes: 1): a delightful and stylish saga focusing on the battle for love, power, money and...
  • (Trunk-hose are either worn with long cloth stockings sewn to them, or—from about 1570—they are equipped with canions.) For a while they appear to have lost […] Fig. 633.2013, Herbert Norris, Tudor Costume and Fashion, Courier Corporation, →ISBN, page 634:
  • Knee-length, easy-fitting canion hose from Italy bedecked the fashionable male thigh, while trunk hose (sometimes gaily partnered with canions) bloomed out over the buttocks ...2015, Lucy Adlington, Stitches in Time: The Story of the Clothes We Wear, Random House, →ISBN:
  • Sometimes the canions were worn over the stockings that covered the legs, and at other times the stockings were pulled on top of them ...2015, José Blanco F., Patricia Kay Hunt-Hurst, Heather Vaughan Lee, Mary Doering, Clothing and Fashion: American Fashion from Head to Toe...

Forms of canion

pluralcanions

Origin of canion

As a term for clothing, apparently from Spanish cañón (“tube; cannon; canyon”); as a term for canyon, certainly from there.

Questions about canion

What does canion mean?
Canion means one of a pair of fitted tubes of cloth worn in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries below short trunk hose and above stockings to cover the leg in between them, sometimes joined to the hose (sometimes reduced to ornamental rolls terminating the legs of the hose), and sometimes joined to each other as breeches worn under the hose.
How do you use canion in a sentence?
Collins herself to be wearing what I should imagine are meant to be canion and hose, rather than bloomers as you describe them.
What part of speech is canion?
Canion is a noun.
What is the plural of canion?
The plural of canion is canions.

Words near canion in the dictionary

  1. Caninos
  2. caninus
  3. caninus muscle
  4. caninus muscles
  5. Caniogan
  6. canion
  7. canions
  8. Canipe
  9. Canipes
  10. caniphobia
  11. Canis Latinicus

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: canion (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “canion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/canion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.