Word.ws English Dictionary

in short pants

in short pants prepositional phrase: synonym of in short trousers (“quite young”).

Prepositional phrase

  1. (Canada, US, idiomatic) Synonym of in short trousers (“quite young”).
    • Near-synonym: in diapers
    • Look, honey, this ain't my first rodeo, OK? I was doing this when you were in short pants.

Synonyms of in short pants

Origin of in short pants

From an early 20th century practice of reserving short pants only for small children.

Questions about in short pants

What does in short pants mean?
In short pants means synonym of in short trousers (“quite young”).
What part of speech is in short pants?
In short pants is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in short pants in the dictionary

  1. in shape
  2. in sheets
  3. in shit
  4. in short
  5. in short order
  6. in short pants
  7. in short supply
  8. in short trousers
  9. in shorter order
  10. in shortest order
  11. in sickness and in health

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in short pants (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.

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