Word.ws English Dictionary

in short trousers

in short trousers prepositional phrase: in childhood; as a child; when quite young (including nonliterally, e.g., as a young adult).

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) In childhood; as a child; when quite young (including nonliterally, e.g., as a young adult).
    • Near-synonym: in diapers
    • We didn't have computers or mobile phones back when I was in short trousers!

Synonyms of in short trousers

Origin of in short trousers

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

Questions about in short trousers

What does in short trousers mean?
In short trousers means in childhood; as a child; when quite young (including nonliterally, e.g., as a young adult).
What part of speech is in short trousers?
In short trousers is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in short trousers in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in short trousers (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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Cite this entry: “in short trousers.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/in_short_trousers. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.