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Knickerbockers   Listen
noun
Knickerbockers  n. pl.  The name for a style of short breeches; smallclothes; called also knickers.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Knickerbockers" Quotes from Famous Books



... An emphatic masculine voice intervened, and round the corner of the clump of trees beneath which the two girls had taken refuge, swung a man's tall, well-setup figure clad in knickerbockers ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... conceiving what life in an English seaside resort is. Believe me, it's not a question of manners and appearance. In those respects we enjoy a freedom unknown in Madeira. (Dolly shakes her head vehemently.) Oh, yes, I assure you. Lord de Cresci's sister bicycles in knickerbockers; and the rector's wife advocates dress reform and wears hygienic boots. (Dolly furtively looks at her own shoe: Valentine catches her in the act, and deftly adds) No, that's not the sort of boot I mean. (Dolly's shoe vanishes.) ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw

... propriety—clean, good-tempered, happy small gentlefolk. For, though they assume peasants' garb, they never betray boorish manners. Their very abandon is only that of nice little people in play-hours, and in their wildest play the penalties that await torn knickerbockers or soiled frocks are not absent from their minds. Whether they really interested children as they delighted their elders is a moot point. The verdict of many modern children is unanimous in praise, and possibly ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... reserve that expression of submissive martyrdom Mr. Direck knew. And Mr. Direck was altogether unprepared for a certain casualness of costume that sometimes overtook Mr. Britling. He was wearing now a very old blue flannel blazer, no hat, and a pair of knickerbockers, not tweed breeches but tweed knickerbockers of a remarkable bagginess, and made of one of those virtuous socialistic homespun tweeds that drag out into woolly knots and strings wherever there is attrition. His stockings were worsted and wrinkled, and on his feet were those extraordinary ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... he? (He goes to the window and gives a low whistle. A Stranger in knickerbockers jumps in and advances with a crab-like movement.) Good! here you are. Allow me to present you ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne

... who ran down passages and round corners like a wet hen, trying to find a man-servant. The place seemed deserted, but presently she came on her quarry in the back yard, and a very small boy in a tarboosh and knickerbockers carried the card on a tray into a room on the left. Through the open door I could hear one quiet question and a high-pitched disclaimer of all knowledge; then an order, sounding like a grumble, and the small boy returned to the hall to invite me in, in reasonably good ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... set at rest next morning when, immediately after morning school, they appeared in their knickerbockers and ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... the good horse which had carried me, on the night of the coronation, back from the hunting-lodge to Strelsau. I carried a revolver in the saddle and my sword. I was covered with a large cloak, and under this I wore a warm, tight-fitting woollen jersey, a pair of knickerbockers, thick stockings, and light canvas shoes. I had rubbed myself thoroughly with oil, and I carried a large flask of whisky. The night was warm, but I might probably be immersed a long while, and it was necessary to take every precaution ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... roan horse followed the dogs, galloping so wildly that when his rider halted him his hoofs tore up the turf as he slid. A girl rode him. She was mounted astride, and Presson had to look twice at her to make sure she was a girl, for she wore knickerbockers and gaiters, and her copper-red hair curled so crisply that it seemed as ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... be like that; if we weren't like it, we wouldn't be any good as officers. This Artillery School had a violent way of sifting out a man's moral worth; you hadn't much conceit left by the end of it. I had not felt myself so paltry since the day when I was left at my first boarding-school in knickerbockers. ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson

... worse, a ring at the front-door bell followed almost immediately, and the maid ushered in a young man of pleasing appearance in a sweater and baggy knickerbockers who apologetically but firmly insisted on playing his ball where it lay, and, what with the shock of the lecturer's narrow escape and the spectacle of the intruder standing on the table and working away with a niblick, the afternoon's session had to be ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... locks and bolts, and precautionary peep-holes, of the possibility of an attitude less hospitable. Threading their way at a rapid pace through the more sluggish main current of the crowd, the members of the regiment, in an infinite variety of civilian attire,—from tweeds and knickerbockers to top-hats and evening-dress,—sought their respective company-rooms, vanished therein, and, presently, reappeared in uniform. It was as if behind those ten doors which lined the upper corridor there were as many moulds, identical in ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... after all, that the girl had escaped through her stepmother. In which case the business might be hushed up yet, and the evil hour of explanation with his wife indefinitely postponed. Then abruptly the image of that lithe figure in grey knickerbockers went frisking across his mind again, and he reverted to his blasphemies. He started up in a gusty frenzy with a vague idea of pursuit, and incontinently sat down again with a concussion that stirred the bar below to ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... Battery a few days ago, one of the park-keepers (himself looking in his bright new uniform somewhat like a blue-jay) expressed his conviction that, next spring, that time-honored pleasure-garden of the old Knickerbockers will be a paradise for song-birds such as it has not been since the original Swedish Nightingale warbled her "woodnotes wild" there a score of years ago, more or less. The sea-gulls, he thought (will Judge HILTON have the goodness to provide these park officers ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various

... a namesake of mine was the contractor for the Thames Embankment, which was built when I was in knickerbockers. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... were well gotten up according to their idea of proper garb for outdoor people. The man wore knickerbockers with gold stockings, riding habit and stock, the girl a beautifully tailored, fine-textured lady's riding habit. Both were immediately conscious of the guide's stare, and Virginia was aware of a distinct embarrassment. Something, somewhere, had evidently gone wrong. Lounsbury took refuge ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... her narrow velveteen skirt, was really a beguiling figure in blue pongee knickerbockers. The straight velveteen jacket reached just below her waist, and with her rumpled curls and weary expression she might easily have been taken for Rosalind, just arrived at the Forest of ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes

... me the more hopeful. You fellows, with your Tam o' Shanters and aggressive neckties and knickerbockers and calves, would frighten the devil. I'm shy myself. If she's natural, then we ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... the governess, was presiding at the head of the table. The Dolman girls were neatly dressed in print frocks with white pinafores; the boys wore holland blouses and knickerbockers. The boys happened to be the two youngest of the family, and none of the children had yet gone to school. The name and ages of the five were as follows: First came Lucy, aged twelve; then Mary, aged ten; ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade

... was a sort of social tyrant wherever she was, and I knew one word from her would insure the popularity of our friends—not that they needed the intervention of any one. Leroy had been a sort of drawing-room pet since before he stopped wearing knickerbockers. ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie

... the bedroom, emptied the battered kitbag, and began to dress. He put on heavy tan walking shoes, gray woollen stockings, gray knickerbockers, gray flannel shirt, and a Norfolk jacket minus ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... brains, hearts, and vertebral columns were the parts most easily seen, and they were filled with an inextinguishable anguish and sorrow that from its very intensity made itself seen as a blue flame. The ruffles and knickerbockers in which some of these were attired, evidently by the effects of the thoughts in their minds, doubtless from force of habit from what they had worn on earth while alive, showed that they had been dead at least two hundred years. Ayrault also now found himself in street ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... popular acceptation, such as Knickerbocker societies, Knickerbocker insurance companies, Knickerbocker steamboats, Knickerbocker omnibuses, Knickerbocker bread, and Knickerbocker ice; and when I find New Yorkers of Dutch descent priding themselves upon being "genuine Knickerbockers," I please myself with the persuasion that I have struck the right chord; that my dealings with the good old Dutch times, and the customs and usages derived from them, are n harmony with the feelings and humors of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... shells all ready for her, Gerty Somebody, and her mother is so pretty and jolly, I like her ever so much. They sit at our table, and Wally is the boy, younger than I am, but very pleasant. Bacon is the fellow in knickerbockers; just wish you could see what stout legs he's got! Cox is the chap for me, though: we are going fishing to-morrow. He's got a sweet-looking mother, and a sister for you, Jill. Now, then, do come on, I'll take ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... Khasi male wears knickerbockers made by a tailor, stockings, and boots; also a tailor-made coat and waistcoat, a collar without a tie, and a cloth peaked cap. The young lady of fashion dons a chemise, also often a short coat of cloth or velvet, stockings, and smart shoes. Of course she wears the jainsem and cloak, but ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... $60,000; and many others make ample provision not yet brought to figures, among them Egypt, China, Brazil, Chili, Venezuela, and that strange political cousin of ours at the antipodes, begotten and sturdily nurtured by the Knickerbockers, the Orange Free State. In all, we may reckon at forty the governments which have made the affair a matter of public concern, and have ranked with the ordinary and regular cares of administration the interest of their people in being adequately represented at Philadelphia. Many ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... be of an easy fit, in the first place; light enough for hot weather and noon service, with resources of warmth for cold weather and night duty. In Europe, the blouse or loose tunic is preferred to every other form of coat, and knickerbockers or gaiters to any form of trousers. The shoe or boot is the weak point of almost all military forces. The French are getting over it; and the English are learning from them. The number of sizes and proportions is, I think, five to one of what it used to be in the early part of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... is just as you imagine. The driver was my companion of the Saxon Cross Hotel. He recognized me at once as I turned to enter the Club. He really was a big man and he looked much bigger in his long motoring overall than in his knickerbockers. 'Great Scott!' he exclaimed. 'It's you! Do come in. I say, you chaps,' he called. 'Here's a bit of luck. A friend of mine,' I was introduced, and he towered over me smiling, his great hook nose dividing his face and distracting ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... came out strong on these occasions, with ''ampers of 'am-sandwiches, bottled porter and so on, don't you know?' all in fine style. Even the stout doctor donned his knickerbockers and grey hose, unfurled his Japanese umbrella, and, with a pretty niece on either arm, disported himself ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... the grace of an elf. Spurred to pictures by the old brocade, Kenny wished he had some velvet knickerbockers and a satin coat. The thought of his knapsack wardrobe filled him with discontent. Hum! To-morrow he must prevail upon someone to conduct him to the nearest village in wire ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... just proportion to its steepness. Yes, and if the call to martyrdom came, I should not despair of finding men who would show themselves equal to it, even in this commonplace age, and among people who wear Highland cloaks and knickerbockers. The martyr's strength would come with the martyr's day. It is because there is no call for it now, that people ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... extremely nice with the farmers around here; he meets them in a sort of man-to-man fashion that disarms them immediately. They were very suspicious at first. They didn't care for his clothes! And I will say that his clothes are rather amazing. He wears knickerbockers and pleated jackets and white flannels and riding clothes with puffed trousers. Whenever he comes down in anything new, Mrs. Semple, beaming with pride, walks around and views him from every angle, and urges him to be careful where he sits down; she is ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster

... they could walk with her up one side of Commonwealth Avenue and down the south bank of the Charles, when the sun was gilding the dome of the State House, when the bridges were beginning to deck themselves with necklaces of lights. They had known her since they wore knickerbockers; and they shared many interests and friends in common; they talked the same language. Latimer could talk to her only in letters, for with her he shared no friends or interests, and he was forced to choose between telling her of his lawsuits and his efforts in politics or of his love. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... strolling along in the attire to which Tilling generally had got accustomed, but Miss Mapp never. She had an old wide-awake hat jammed down on her head, a tall collar and stock, a large loose coat, knickerbockers and grey stockings. In her mouth was a cigarette, in her hand she swung the orthodox wicker-basket. She had certainly been to the other fishmonger's at the end of the High Street, for a lobster, revived perhaps after a sojourn on the ice, by this warm sun, which the ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... bother about the Dragon—I'll do it. But I wish you would put another character into the piece. It is for Clinton. He says he will act with us. He says he can do anything if it is a leading part. He has got black velvet knickerbockers and scarlet stockings, and he can have the tunic and cloak I wore last year, and the flap hat; and you must lend him your white ostrich feather. Make him some kind of a grandee. If you can't, he must be ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... at Pontresina looked decidedly sleepy and misty at five o'clock on an August morning, when two sturdy British holiday-seekers, in knickerbockers and regular Alpine climbing rig, sat drinking their parting cup of coffee in the salle-a-manger, before starting to make the ascent of the Piz Margatsch, one of the tallest and by far the most difficult among the peaks of the Bernina range. There are few prettier ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... Monday came at last, and with my little box corded up, with Mrs Hudson as an escort, and a pair of brand-new knickerbockers upon my manly person, I started off from my uncle's house in the coach for Stonebridge, with all ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... was broken by the apparition of a dusty wayfarer in knickerbockers and soft felt hat, coming towards them up the road. He was a man of middle height and rather slim. He appeared about five-and-thirty years of age. He had fair hair, and a strange, whimsical face, irregular of feature, with a small moustache covering ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... me. I could bear up if I never saw an improving book again. What I would like would be for some benevolent old millionaire to take a fancy to me, and adopt me as his heir. I feel cut out to be a country gentleman, and march about in gaiters and knickerbockers, looking after the property, don't you know, and interviewing my tenants. I'd be strict with them, but kind at the same time; look into all their grievances, and put them right whenever I could. I'd make it a model place before I'd done with it, and ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... the Europeans like?" Biddy questioned, without answering. "Were they wearing light tweed knickerbockers ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... put his hand to his head in miserable embarrassment. He had known handsome Jack O'Shaughnessy since he was a boy in knickerbockers. It was more than he could stand to look him in the face and give him ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... coat and full bloomers. No one is wearing that style, now. Everything is mannish coats and tight knickerbockers," argued Barbara. ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... a state of unprecedented physical fitness. And such skirts as Ann Veronica had had when she entered the valley of Saas were safely packed away in the hotel, and she wore a leather belt and loose knickerbockers and puttees—a costume that suited the fine, long lines of her limbs far better than any feminine walking-dress could do. Her complexion had resisted the snow-glare wonderfully; her skin had only deepened its natural warmth a little under the Alpine sun. She had pushed aside her azure veil, ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... wish to refuse him after all the encouragement she had given him. On this occasion he put on no pink shirt or shiny boots, being deterred from doing so by a remembrance of Captain Bellfield's ridicule; but, nevertheless, he dressed himself with considerable care. He clothed his nether person in knickerbockers, with tight, leathern, bright-coloured gaiters round his legs, being conscious of certain manly graces and symmetrical proportions which might, as he thought, stand him in good stead. And he put on a new shooting-coat, the buttons on which were elaborate, and a wonderful waistcoat worked over ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... Francesca deliberately, "two men in corduroys, with straps below their knees, and a boy in flannel shorts, all working seven hours and a half per day for a week, can plant five thousand potatoes on an acre of land, how many girls in knickerbockers will be ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various

... morning. So to me seem the skies at home. Not lightly do I say it, for I have known the toil of rough-hewing it on the pioneer line that turns men's hair gray; but I have seen also the reward of the toil. New York is the youngest of the world's great cities, barely yet out of knickerbockers. It may be that our century will yet see it as the greatest of them all. The task that is set it, the problem it has to solve and which it may not shirk, is the problem of civilization, of human progress, of a people's fitness ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... football player in full armour resembles a deep-sea diver or a Roman retiarius more than anything else. The dress itself consists of thickly padded knickerbockers, jersey, canvas jacket, very heavy boots, and very thick stockings. The player then farther protects himself by shin guards, shoulder caps, ankle and knee supporters, and wristbands. The apparatus on his head is fearful and wonderful ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... something in the world; I was sure that he had. He has a little income of his own, but he is too proud and ambitious to be an idler. He looked so manly when he talked about it, standing up straight and strong in his knickerbockers. I like men in knickerbockers. Aunt Celia doesn't. She says she doesn't see how a well-brought-up Copley can go about with his legs in that condition. I would give worlds to know how aunt Celia ever unbent sufficiently to get engaged. But, as I was saying, Mr. Copley has accomplished ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... bookcases; religious books, many of them, reflecting the gentle faith of the owner. On mantel and table and walls were photographs of her children in long clothes and short, and then once more in long ones; there was Barry in wide collars and knickerbockers, and Constance and Mary in ermine caps and capes; there was Barry again in the military uniform of his preparatory school; Constance in her graduation frock, and Mary with her hair up for the first time. There was a picture of their father on porcelain in a blue velvet case, and another ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey

... the road which was overshaded by a huge chestnut-tree, he suddenly came face to face with the Reverend Putwood Leveson, who, squatted on the hank by the roadside, with his grand-pianoforte legs well exposed to view in tight brown knickerbockers and grey worsted stockings, was bending perspiringly over his recumbent bicycle, mending something which ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... doll's baby-cab, in which lay a woodchuck doll made of cloth, in quite a perfect imitation of a real woodchuck. It was stuffed with something soft to make it round and fat, and its eyes were two glass beads sewn upon the face. A big boy woodchuck wore knickerbockers and a Tam o' Shanter cap and rolled a hoop; and there were several smaller boy and girl woodchucks, dressed quite as absurdly, who followed after their ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

... thorns and bits of grass stuck in them," she cried, examining them closely. "Some one must have walked about in them on grass, and wet grass too." She put down the stocking, and picked up the knickerbockers which were lying on a chair. "My dear child, these are all muddy too!" And as she held them up Paul saw on them the clear marks of his fall, and his attempts to scale ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... colonel more despotic. His brothers and sisters were by turn infantry, cavalry, engineers, and artillery, according to his whim, and when his affections finally settled upon the Highlanders of "The Black Watch," no female power could compel him to keep his stockings above his knees, or his knickerbockers ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... that his usual costume would make him undesirably conspicuous in America, for during his tour of this country the Primate of all England abandoned the picturesque every-day dress of an English bishop, with its knickerbockers and gaiters, in favor of the international hideousness of pantaloons. At the time of the photograph Bishop Potter was wearing leggings, having just returned from riding, so that the two bishops appeared to ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... too often been brushed from our girls' delicacy of thought. They can strut through the street in the daytime wearing a shirt-front, a cravat, a choker, a vest, and a man's hat, and carrying a cane. A few can flaunt themselves in bloomers and knickerbockers, and ride astride a bicycle. They ape men in everything except courtesy to women. But the result is not what was expected. These customs have introduced the chaperone, and have put an end to simple freedom between boys and girls. The Puritan maiden in her modesty ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... astonishment they did not seem at all disturbed at seeing her, but came up and ranged themselves in a row before her and bowed to the ground. They were all dressed alike in green knickerbockers and tunics, edged with scarlet, and tiny green caps, and one, the handsomest of the lot, had a beautiful red waving feather at one side of his. They stood and looked at Anne and smiled, and Anne, not ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... had a revolver, a hunting knife, and some fishing tackle; one three and a quarter by four and a quarter folding pocket kodak, one panorama kodak, a sextant and artificial horizon, a barometer, a thermometer. I wore a short skirt over knickerbockers, a short sweater, and a belt to which were attached my cartridge pouch, revolver, and hunting knife. My hat was a rather narrow brimmed soft felt. I had one pair of heavy leather moccasins reaching almost to my knees, one pair of high seal-skin boots, one pair low ones, which M. Duclos ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... engrossing, she did not look much more after him till Dr. May came in, and said, 'I want you to sketch off a portrait of her dicky-bird for Meta;' and he put before her a natural history with a figure of that tiny humming-bird which is endowed with swansdown knickerbockers. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... work, or lying at his wife's feet on the rocks, and now and then irrelevantly bringing up a knotty point in the character or action for her criticism. For these excursions Godolphin had equipped himself with a gray corduroy sack and knickerbockers, and a stick which he cut from the alder thicket; he wore russet shoes of ample tread, and very thick-ribbed stockings, which ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... done the trick for me. To this day I remember the breathless, straining agony of the ascent, when my clothes and myself seemed heavier than lead, and the ship's deck miles above me. My clothes—a jersey and flannel knickerbockers—dried quickly in the scorching sun, and no grown-up ever knew of the escapade, I think. But, the peril of it, in a ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... sewing with the request: "Go see if you can be mother, sister, and friend to Miss Sally, Joanna—there's an angel!" Which intimate form of address may be comprehended if it is added that Joanna had been in the Burnside family since Jarvis himself was a small lad in knickerbockers—and the good woman's especial pride—and that therefore a warm ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond

... seems to possess ordinary intelligence. I had the honour of being inadvertently presented to him, and he asked me, should I write anything about Bayreuth, to say that he objected very much to the Englishmen who came in knickerbockers—in bicycle costume. When I mildly suggested that if they came without knickerbockers or the customary alternative he would have better reason to complain, he asserted that he and his family had a great respect for the theatre, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... beautiful, some wan and flat-breasted, some elegant and stately, some ugly and squat, some plain and whitewashed, and some painted and decorated; women in silk gowns, and women in divided skirts, and women in widows' weeds, and women in knickerbockers, and women in ulsters, and women in furs, and women in crinolines, and women in tights, and women in rags; but every woman of them all in tears. The great chamber was full of a mighty babel; shouts and ululations, groans and moans, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... that the right-hand turning would bring me more quickly to the cliff-face from which I had heard the voices. After I had made my choice, you may be sure that I went on hands and knees, feeling the ground in front of me. I went forward very, very slowly, with the wet mud coming through my knickerbockers, and the cold drops sometimes falling on my neck from the roof. At last I saw a little glimmer of light, and there was a turning to the left; and just beyond the turning there was a chamber in the rock, all lit up by the ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... dressing, and presently there stood as fresh a pair of morning children as anyone could wish to see, with rosy cheeks, and smooth hair, and clean print frocks—for Olly was still in frocks—though when the winter came mother said she was going to put him into knickerbockers. ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... in her life seen any one in knickerbockers and leggins before, and the memory of his amused her somewhat, yet she admitted to herself that they had seemed quite "peart" as she peered at them through ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... jacket the clear outlines and youthful grace of his upper figure were revealed as clearly as in a statue. Long fishing-boots reaching to his thighs scarcely concealed the symmetry of his lower limbs. Cricket and lawn-tennis, knickerbockers and flannels had not at that period familiarized the female eye to unfettered masculine outline, and Cicely Preston, accustomed to the artificial smartness and regularity of uniform, was perhaps the more impressed by the stranger's ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... Abel wore knickerbockers and his feet and legs were bare, for he had just waded across the river beyond the Mill, and meant to retreat by the same road. He had hidden in a may bush till the people were all gone to their meal, and then crossed the stream into the works. That ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... and Shakespeare, both of whom she almost worshipped, while Robert's were compasses and maps. He also had a mapmeasurer (from Mr. Lenox), and at the moment at which this story opens, his birthday being just over, he was the possessor of a pedometer, which he carried fastened to his leg, under his knickerbockers, so that it was certain to register every time he took a step. He kept a careful record of the distance he had walked since his birthday, and could tell you at any time what it was, if you gave him a minute or two to crawl under the table and undo ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas

... arrived, appeared on the streets one day in knickerbockers and stockings. Kit was in town and was observed watching the tenderfoot. To the average cowboy a silk top hat was like a red flag to a bull, so much like it in fact that the hat was usually lucky to escape with less than half a dozen holes through it. But here in these knee-breeches ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... mansion, with broad, white piazza, looking over rich meadow-lands. Here it was that I found my friend Favonius, president of solemn societies, pillar of church and state, ingenuously arrayed in gray knickerbockers, a flannel shirt, and a soft hat, waiting to take me on his horse-yacht for ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... original of which is at Windsor, and a replica at Berlin. The painting is dated 1637, fixing the age of Prince Charles as seven. Having now outgrown the frocks of the earlier pictures, he stands in a graceful boyish attitude, wearing satin knickerbockers and waistcoat, and still retaining the beautiful lace collar on his aristocratic shoulders. His eyes have the same dreamy look as in other portraits. On his right are his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, the former demurely complacent as before, the latter timid ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... starvation which lay before him. His father had been the Vakeel of the place and the child of course had been decently reared. He was pinched and pallid with hunger, and he had but a single garment, a pair of the baggy knickerbockers worn by the peasants of the district, which enveloped him from heel to shoulder. I got him decently attired, and in a while managed to place him in the care of a colleague in Constantinople, and when I left the country my brother-in-law, ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... his impertinence goes without saying—to be talked to in such a strain by Sydney Atherton, whom I had kept in subjection ever since he was in knickerbockers, was a little trying,—but I am forced to admit that I was more impressed by his manner, or his words, or by Mr Holt's manner, or something, than I should have cared to own. I had not the least notion what was going to happen, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... the earl carelessly and if we decide for you to gallopp by the royal viacle you must be mesured for some plush knickerbockers at once. ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford

... brick station and a long platform. This was crowded with boys, all in military garb like Tom's own. They looked so very trim and handsome that Helen and Ruth were quite excited. There were boys ranging from little fellows of ten, in knickerbockers, to big chaps whose mustaches were ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson

... was next to him, wore brown knickerbockers and long stockings, a red and blue plaid, and a red ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... attendants was the inevitable young Hammond Synge, master of ceremonies of her regular court, always offering the use of a telescope and accepting that of a cigar, the other was a personage I had not yet encountered, a small pale youth in showy knickerbockers, whose eyebrows and nose and the glued points of whose little moustache were extraordinarily uplifted and sustained. I remember taking him at first for a foreigner and for something of a pretender: I scarcely know why, unless because of the motive I felt in the stare he ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... enough Arab blood in all of them to make them bold; Bantu enough for syncopated, rag-time music to take them by the toes and stir them. The crowd in the street grew, and gathered until a policeman in red fez and khaki knickerbockers came and started trouble. He had a three-cornered fight on his hands, and no sympathy from any one, within two minutes. Then the man with the stomach and swagger—he whom Fred called Haroun-al-Raschid—took a hand in masterly style. He ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... mostly preserve the old national dress. Some men still wear, and both sexes once wore, the ridiculous carapuca, or funnel-cap with a rat-tail for a tassel. The rest of the toilet consists of homespun cottons, shirts and knickerbockers, with buff shoes or boots broad-soled and heelless. The traveller who prefers walking should always use this chaussure, and the 'little girl in topboots' is still a standing joke. The women affect parti-coloured ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... of, but welcome to and dearly loved by many an old Knickerbocker even up to a recent date. Its name, too, as most of you bright boys and girls doubtless know, furnished the title for one of the works of Washington Irving, best loved of all the Knickerbockers. ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... a moment Joe was surrounded by his friends and fellow townsmen, most of whom had known him when he was in knickerbockers and now were more proud of him than they had ever been, even when he returned to Riverside crowned with the laurels of his last great season. Joe was mauled and pounded until he was almost out of breath, and it was a relief ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick

... out of a residence in this bleak island at such a season. Mackenzie discarded at once the feeble protections against cold and wet which his guest had brought with him. He gave him a pair of his own knickerbockers and enormous boots; he made him wear a frieze coat borrowed from Duncan; he insisted on his turning down the flap of a sealskin cap and tying the ends under his chin; and thus equipped they started on many a rare expedition round ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... would have been an insult to the moorhen. Nevertheless some ambitious young gentleman of aesthetic tastes might do worse than get himself up in this bird's livery. An open coat of olive-brown silk, with an oblique white band at the side; waistcoat or cummerbund, and knickerbockers, slaty grey; stockings and shoes of olive green; and, for a touch of bright colour, an orange and scarlet tie. It would be pleasant to meet him in Piccadilly. But he would never, never be able to get that quaint pretty carriage. The "Buzzard lope" and the crane's stately stride are ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... recognised that sudden changes were prejudicial before sufficient progress had been accomplished. "To destroy, you must replace." Justice he considered the sole guide, reason and duty the only law. His morality was not that of pharasaical tartuffes, nor of prudish knickerbockers, who with wide phylacteries, sit in the high places to be seen of men. He only combatted evil principles and fought hard in ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran

... gallant stand for New France. They have vanished as completely as the Indian. In Detroit, in St. Louis, French ancestry can be traced in families of high position and honorable lineage. Such families are to those cities what the Knickerbockers are to New York. They give a gracious flavor to society; they are a link between the dim and heroic past and the dashing, eager, practical present; they add a dreamy fascination to the social landscape, like the lingering haze of morning illumined by the rays of the sun fast ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... four people, walking along the road in the same direction as myself. There was an elderly man, a younger man, red- haired, walking very lightly, in knickerbockers, and two boys whom I took to be the sons of the younger man. I recognised the elder man as a friend, though I cannot now remember who he appeared to be. He nodded and smiled to me, and I joined the party. Just as I did so, the younger man said, "I am going to call on a lady, an elderly cousin ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Lendicott lectures a few years ago. The thing that struck me about him is that he's so consummately wise—wise enough, Mrs. Marcella, to grasp at the significance of an amoeba as well as that of the Lord of Hosts! I'm a small man—a little G.P. in an obscure Highland village in rather shabby tweed knickerbockers and Inverness cape (yes, the same ones—still no new clothes! What would be the use in wasting money on adorning an old ruffian like me?) But I went up to him, sort of shaking at the knees, after the second lecture, and discussed a point with him. The point was not what ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... to pass sentence. We were about to put it, when Harold appeared on the scene; his red face, round eyes, and mysterious demeanour, hinting at awful portents. Speechless he stood a space: then, slowly drawing his hand from the pocket of his knickerbockers, he displayed on a dirty palm one—two—three—four half-crowns! We could but gaze—tranced, breathless, mute; never had any of us seen, in the aggregate, so much bullion before. Then Harold told ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... head, and the white brocade waistcoat all dark and stained at the shoulder, and his poor dear face ghastly white. And Jerry asleep, with the ruffle still pinned to his wet shirt and a big hole torn in the knee of his knickerbockers. And I saw the slimy pools that the tide had left beside us—it was on the ebb again—and the pieces of the root-beer bottle that Jerry had broken off, and the horrible, high, black head of the ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price

... the day, and the labor involved in greasing his boots, which were much in evidence, owing to the brevity of the white duck trousers that needed but one or two more washings, with the accompanying process of shrinking, to convert them into knickerbockers. Bear's grease had turned his ordinary curling brown hair into a damp, shining mass that dripped in tiny rills, from time to time, down on his coat collar, but Hi was happy. Beau Brummel, at the height of his sartorial fame, never ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... the corner of a large chest, side by side with jerseys, caps, knickerbockers, and other football requisites, as a remnant of the glorious game, my master sometimes visits me to think over the past, and I often hear him say that, although he does not play now, he still goes to see some of the leading contests, ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... while he addressed an imaginary ball with the mashie which he had taken out of his golf-bag. For this was the day when he went down to Walton Heath for his weekly foursome with three old friends. His tubby form was clad in tweed of a violent nature, with knickerbockers ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... town, and was able to find six men to join his fifteen young ladies in the ancient sport. Two preachers, a young dentist and three college professors were the only male creatures who dared walk across our town in plaid stockings and knickerbockers, and certainly it hurt their standing at the banks, for the town frowned on golf, and confined its sport to baseball in the summer, football in the autumn, ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... boys were eagerly examining the diverse and sundry objects thickly scattered around. They had wonderfully dirty hands and faces, their jackets were splashed as if with some foaming beverage, the knees of their knickerbockers were grubby with gravel and grass, and they had generally the aspect of having done wildly what they ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... talking to them about the farmer's wedding of the morning, for which the bells had been ringing fitfully all day, and had just burst out again. Such was the scene, through which, like a flash, spun a tricycle, from which a tiny curly-haired being in knickerbockers was barely saved by his mother's seizing him ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... fact, to be precise, of his forty-seven years, created a vague questioning dissatisfaction. Suddenly he saw himself—a comfortable body in a comfortable existence, a happy existence, he added sharply— objectively; and the stout figure in knickerbockers, rough stockings, a yellow buckskin jacket and checked cap pulled over a face which, he felt, was brightly red, surprised and a little annoyed him. In the abrupt appearance of this image it seemed that there had been no transitional years between his slender youth and the ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... down Broadway to the "Evening Post" office, suggested little more than a vigorous and somewhat radical editor of an increasingly prosperous Democratic newspaper. There was nothing of the Fringed Gentian or Yellow Violet about him. Like so many of the Knickerbockers, Bryant was an immigrant to New York; in fact, none of her adopted men of letters have represented so perfectly the inherited traits of the New England Puritan. To understand his long, and honorable public life it is necessary to know something of the city of his choice, but to enter ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... Comtesse's pretty comic drawing-room (for she likes the comic touch when she is in England) sits John Shand with his hostess, on chairs at a great distance from each other. No linen garments for John, nor flannels, nor even knickerbockers; he envies the English way of dressing for trees and lawns, but is too Scotch to be able to imitate it; he wears tweeds, just as he would do in his native country where they would be in kilts. Like many another Scot, the first time he ever saw a kilt ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie

... in knickerbockers, receives $60,000 a week; his brother Henry, $40,000 a week. The sum in both cases automatically increases as the interest on the principal compounds. What do many of the workers who supply this revenue get? Patterson gives this ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... travellers were obliged to sail directly below some high overhanging rocks, from the top of one of which a particularly odious little boy, dressed in rose-colored knickerbockers, and with a pewter plate upon his head, threw an enormous pumpkin at the boat, by which ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear

... grass, the latter's knickerbockers, which had been generously fashioned out of a material which had been boldly conceived, presented a back view which was most arresting. With his head on one side, the terrier gazed at them with such inquisitive astonishment ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... baggage, the dock labourers in the sheds pile grain sacks on to waggons, and strings of stout horses stand resting beside them. On the edge of the quay are flower girls in black, selling big bunches of violets, and a Strong-man in pink tights and sky-blue knickerbockers—a festive piece of colour taken with his two white chairs and bright carpet. He plays with silver balls and does balancing feats with his little girl, and puts his arms round her and strokes her hair after each turn, in a delicate appeal to the sympathies of passengers who lean over the rail and ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... his inheritance to pass unto his daughters." It would have been commendable if the members of the late Constitutional Convention in New York had, like Moses, asked the guidance of the Lord in deciding the rights of the daughters of the Van Rensselaers, the Stuyvesants, the Livingstons, and the Knickerbockers. Their final action revealed the painful fact that they never thought to take the case to the highest court in the moral universe. The daughters of Zelophehad were fortunate in being all of one mind; none there to plead the fatigue, the publicity, ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... decades gone forever. We never intend to become a man. We keep our boy's heart ever fresh and ever warm. We don't care if the whole human race, from the Ascidians to Darwin himself, assail us and fiercely thrust us once more into short jackets and knickerbockers, provided they allow an indefinite vacation in a daisy field. The joy of childhood is said to be vague. It was all satisfying to us once, and we do not intend to allow it to waste in unconscious effervescence among the gaudier though less ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... have been most curious to English eyes. They wore wide straw hats, with a white scarf wound round the top to keep off the heat. Their dresses were very short, and made of brown holland, with a garibaldi of blue-coloured flannel. They wore red flannel knickerbockers, and gaiters coming up above the knee, of a very soft, flexible leather, made of deers' skin. These gaiters were an absolute necessity, for the place literally swarmed with snakes, and they constantly found them in the garden when going out to gather vegetables. Most of these snakes ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... strange and the investigation required so much secrecy and caution that Captain Neeland changed his uniform for knickerbockers and shooting coat, borrowed a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun under his arm, and sauntered out of Lorient town before dawn, like ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers

... betes of her menagerie received two yards of velvet, to make knickerbockers to be worn at her receptions; this custom was observed up to the last year of the existence of her salon. Her receptions were among the first of the kind in France. Like the majority of salon leaders, she was an authoress of no mean ability. ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... Split, holding up a full-kneed pair of knickerbockers and a belted jacket. "Well!" With a philosophical grin, she began to put ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... affection for his mother and his demonstrativeness in showing it; she had liked his well-bred swagger, his manner with servants, his impulsive courtesy to herself. It was a real pleasure to her to see him, morning by morning, in his knickerbockers and Norfolk jacket, or his tweed suit; and evening by evening in his swallow-tail coat and white shirt, and the knee breeches and buckled shoes that he wore by reason of the touch of picturesque and defiant romanticism that was so obvious a part of his nature. Then she had begun, ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... the belly out of my fiddle," said Johnny Mears to his wife, who sat on a three-legged stool by the rough table in the little whitewashed "end-room", putting a patch of patches over the seat of a pair of moleskin knickerbockers. He lit his pipe, moved a stool to the side of the great empty fireplace, where it looked cooler—might have been cooler on account of a possible draught suggested by the presence of the chimney, and where, therefore, he felt a breath cooler. He took his fiddle from a ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... susceptible females. He was esteemed, an accomplished artist and true man. He opened at Niblo's in "Ruy Blas," making his headquarters at the Metropolitan, and frequenting a theatrical club-house on Houston street, known as the "House of Lords." Socially, he was never received by the Knickerbockers of the Empire city, his relations with men of letters and the professions were extremely cordial. How Mrs. R. and himself became acquainted is not clearly defined. But that acquaintance on her part was resolved into ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money

... unaffectedly abandoned themselves to an attitude of permanent delighted astonishment. They lived in a world of magic. And their entire existence was based on the tacit assumption—tacit because the truth of it was so manifest—that their boy was the most prodigious boy that ever was. He went into knickerbockers. He learnt hymns. He went to school—and came back alive at the end of the first day and said he had enjoyed it! Certainly, other boys went to school. Yes, but there was something special, something indefinable, something incredible, about Henry's going to school that separated ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... had youth on his side and a sound chest, while nature had not given him a pair of well-formed calves for nothing; so that he faced the steep hillsides or got over the rough ground with comparative ease, rejoicing the while in the unwonted freedom of knickerbockers. It was Sir Hugh, with his bulky habit of body, who got blown now and again; as for Captain Waveney, he was a pretty tough subject and wiry. So they fought bravely on, to atone for the inhuman detention of the morning; and by the time it was necessary to make for the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... now," continued the Imp; and thrusting a hand into the pocket of his knickerbockers he drew forth six inches or so of slimy worm and held it out to me upon his ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... He'd had a shock to his nerves, that's what brought it on. He was ordered to Europe as his one chance. Somebody had to go with him, somebody he'd mind, and there wasn't anybody he did mind but me. I've known him since he was a little thing in knickerbockers, that high. So we fixed it that I was to go out and look after Binky, and Binky's mother—he's her only son—was coming out too, to look after me. We cared for appearances as much as you do. Well, the day before we sailed her married daughter was taken ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... the breakfast table attired in tweeds of a rather violent pattern, knickerbockers and spats. He wore a plaid shirt with turnover cuffs, a gay scarf and a handkerchief just showing a neat triangle of the same color at his upper coat pocket. This handkerchief, he informed me airily, was his "show-er." ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... men wear are not so elaborate. They used to be short knickerbockers with silver clasps, but these have entirely gone out of fashion, and they have been replaced by ordinary clothes of cloth or corduroy. Both sexes wear wooden shoes, which the men often make themselves. In the far-famed little island of Marken, the men are very clever ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough

... you were safety-pinned into a square of cloth once doubled triangularly. You graduated to rompers at a year and a half or two. Then you put on knee-pants, and afterward youth's long trousers. Now you wear the clothes of a full-grown man. You would not think of dressing in knickerbockers, or rompers, or—something younger, to present your qualities and services for sale. Yet your outer garb is much less important to the success of your salesmanship than is ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... that cuckoo? Does you know?" were the first words he uttered, as soon as he had fairly shaken himself, though not by any means all his clothes, free of the bushes (for ever so many pieces of jacket and knickerbockers, not to speak of one boot and half his hat, had been left behind on the way), and found ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... listless expression and manner. She did not await their arrival, but turned, disappointed, within. It was already time to dress for dinner, the ladies habitually observing this formality, although Briscoe often went in knickerbockers till midnight. Lillian paused on the veranda and gazed down the road, winding away into the dusky red flare of the fading west, for the drive must needs be short in this season of early nightfall. There was no sign of approach along its smooth and shadowy ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... carrying the luncheon basket and Anne's coat. He had changed, and appeared in the Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers, and cap he had worn at Scarby. The pang that struck her at the sight of them was softened by her practical perception of their fitness for the adventure. They became him, too, and she had memory of the charm he had once worn for her with ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... the city youth, "you did bore it into him fine! And he didn't dare put a hand on you, either. That was queer, for, my word! he's strong as Sandow. He handled me as easy as if I wasn't out of knickerbockers." ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... everybody would probably have admitted that there was but one man then living who could have created and peopled the vast and humorous world of the Knickerbockers; that all the learning of Oxford and Cambridge together would not enable a man to draw the whimsical portrait of Ichabod Crane, or to outline the fascinating legend of Rip Van Winkle; while Europe was full of scholars of more learning than Irving, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... but Fatty had had enough. He was glad of the opportunity to dive into the pond. One after the other the boys ran up the springboard until only Jim and the stranger were left. The man walked back into the grove and in a moment Jim, in his knickerbockers and blouse, joined him. ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... clan he not only gives his thanks, but his promise that all rents shall be reduced by one half—so long as he dwells among them!" (Tumultuous applause, disturbed only by a violent ejaculation from a large man in knickerbockers whom Bunker justly judged to be ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston

... said Frances flippantly. "Really, the dandy has surpassed himself. Knickerbockers and a Norfolk jacket, if you please! Why, actually a horse! He is going out to ride. This it is to be a counter-jumper in these ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... after him. His mother, who was an extravagant woman on the emotional and spiritual plane, made the poor little boy wear his hair curled in long ringlets down his back, and clad him in a fancy costume of black velvet, with knickerbockers and black silk stockings; he was homely of face, and looked "soft," as normal boys would say. But his parents were determined to make an ideal dream-child of him, and, of course, he had to submit. I had the contempt ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... details are nearly all that have descended to us respecting the ancient Knickerbockers. It seems, however, that while digging in the centre of the emperors garden, (which, you know, covers the whole island), some of the workmen unearthed a cubical and evidently chiseled block of granite, weighing several hundred pounds. It was in good preservation, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... speaking of this practical dress reform on the part of the belles of New York, the Boston Daily Globe recently observed editorially: The great question now agitating the fashionable women of Fifth Avenue is: "Do you wear knickerbockers?" ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... underclothing," said Clarges, not in the least perturbed. "Knickerbockers," continued Simpson, "that are certainly one size too small; a cap that looks like a hangman's, and a coat that must have come ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... company of cattle-jobbers, four of them, red-faced men with keen, crafty eyes, bound for some Western fair; then a laughing party of tourists, women in short skirts and exaggeratedly protective veils, men with fierce tweed knickerbockers dragging stuffed hold-alls and yellow bags. These were evidently English. Their clear high-pitched voices proclaimed contempt for their surroundings, and left no doubt of their nationality. One of them addressed a bewildered porter in ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... pipe, assuming, as he did so, a judicial aspect. I filled mine, and our young friend followed suit by taking a silver cigarette-case from his pocket, and striking a match on the leg of his khaki knickerbockers with a ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne

... Shankpainter Hill at the end of Cape Cod. It was a perilous meditation, for we found our belief in Plutarch's Lives, the Charter Oak, and the existence of the Maelstrm all sliding away from under us. "Think," we said, "if New York had been Boston, how it would have fared with the good Knickerbockers!" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the landscape, Willie," he said; "and draw that glorious Italian boy going into ecstasies over those bits of ferns. Just look at the line of his eyebrows! You only need to put a crucifix for the magnifying-glass and a Roman toga for the jacket and knickerbockers, and there's your Early Christian ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... shrewdness and knowledge of the world. He was dark and well-featured, his glossy black hair was parted in the middle, his moustache of the cut called imperial, his beard short and peaked. He wore a canvas jacket, a white waistcoat and knickerbockers; at his throat a blue necktie fluttered loose. When Hubert's name was announced by the servant, this gentleman stopped midway in a sentence, took his pipe from his lips, and looked to ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... week had passed I was still rather like myself. He had such a cheery way of whistling, she had told me, it had always brightened her at her work to hear him whistling, and when he whistled he stood with his legs apart, and his hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers. I decided to trust to this, so one day after I had learned his whistle (every boy of enterprise invents a whistle of his own) from boys who had been his comrades, I secretly put on a suit of his clothes, dark grey they were, with ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie

... accordion in a case swung over one shoulder like a sack, and under the other arm a wooden cage containing a grey squirrel. It was a December night in London, and the Southern lad had nothing to shelter his little body from the Northern cold but his short velveteen jacket, red waistcoat, and knickerbockers. He was going home after a long day in Chelsea, and, conscious of something fantastic in his appearance, and of doubtful legality in his calling, he was dipping into side streets in order to escape the laughter of the London boys and the ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... State provides knickerbockers, tunics, and gymnasium shoes for those children whose parents are too poor to provide them; and again, in Scandinavia there is very frequently the provision of bathrooms in which the pupils can have a shower bath and rub-down ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly

... room, whence he quickly returned with shooting coat, knickerbockers, pot-cap and ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne

... his stateroom sitting in his pyjamas with a rubber shoe on one foot and a pump on the other, wondering whether he ought to put on golf knickerbockers with a dressing-gown and straw hat before he comes on deck. He has already put on and taken off ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... service out of Italy. I had taken him to Munich to have some singing lessons. After the war came on we had to get from Munich to Naples in order to sail at all. We were told that we could take only hand luggage on the railways, but I took nine trunks and Peppo. I dressed Peppo in knickerbockers, made him brush his curls down over his ears like doughnuts, and carry a little violin-case. It took us eleven days to reach Naples. I got my trunks through purely by personal persuasion. Once at Naples, I had a frightful time getting Peppo ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... over the meal that morning, and within half an hour everybody was again on deck, each provided with a pair of binoculars, while the men folk—attired in stalking suits of thin but tough grey-green tweed, consisting of Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, with caps of the same material, and shod with stout boots, surmounted by thick leather gaiters reaching to the knee, as a protection against possible snake-bites—had taken the precaution to bring up their rifles and bandoliers with them, in ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... the top of her book, the Father put on his glasses, and the lid was lifted. Yes, it was a suit. A blue cloth suit, quite bright in color but of very fine material and good make. It consisted of a pair of knickerbockers and a tight jacket, and it was most extraordinary how the tailor had ever been able to put on so many buttons. The jacket was double-breasted and there were three rows down the front, a dozen in each, the size of a copper penny. ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... Here and there a well-known actor passed, elaborately unconscious of the attention he excited: sometimes he wore patent leather boots, a coat with an astrakhan collar, and carried a silver-knobbed stick; and sometimes, looking as though he had come from a day's shooting, he strolled in knickerbockers, and ulster of Harris tweed, and a tweed hat on the back of his head. The sun shone on the blue sea, and the blue sea was ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... in her mind. She looked at them as a mother's eyes rest fondly on the shining faces, the well-brushed hair, the clean pinafores of her brood. And her heart swelled with pride. They lay on their tables, the artful knickerbockers, the gleaming petticoats, the pink and blue pajamas, the bifurcated skirts. Emma McChesney ran one hand lightly over the navy blue ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... once under Mrs. Pipchin's charge;" and, similarly, the obscure writer of these papers was once under Miss Leech's. Her school supplied the originals of all the little boys, whether greedy or gracious, grave or gay, on foot or on pony-back, in knickerbockers or in nightshirts, who figure so frequently in Punch between 1850 and 1864; and one of the pleasantest recollections of those distant days is the kindness with which the great artist used to receive us when, as the supreme reward of exceptionally ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... not stop with his food; they extended to his clothes—everything he used, in fact. His baggy knickerbockers ended in leather leggins to protect his pipe-stem shanks; his shirts buttoned all the way down in front and went on like a coat; he wore health flannels by day and a health shirt at night ("Just like my old Aunt Margaret's wrapper," whispered Marny in a stage voice to Pudfut); sported ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the access of puberty leads to the adoption of clothing and to a refinement of dress and personal adornment. A relic of this remains, as Dr. Schurtz points out, in the leaving off of knickerbockers and the adoption of "long dresses," by the young people in our civilized communities ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... evening ablutions removing a Joseph's coat of dust and paint; and came forth from my pavilion, hoping that Professor Keredec and his friend would not mind eating in the same garden with a man in a corduroy jacket and knickerbockers; but the gentlemen continued invisible to the public eye, and mine was the only table set for dinner in the garden. Up-stairs the curtains were carefully drawn across all the windows of the east wing; little ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... that light, Buck," I said, and I must have been rather haughty and abrupt, for a stifled shriek came from under the bedclothes in the corner and Buck disappeared swiftly. Preparations for bed are simple in the mountains—they were primitively simple for me that night. Being in knickerbockers, I merely took off my coat and shoes. Presently somebody else stepped into the room and the bed in the other corner creaked. Silence for a while. Then the door opened, and the head of the ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.

... staff was still on duty when he reached Scotland Yard the next morning. The detective-inspector in charge stared at a corpulent man clad in a Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers of brown tweed, whose heavy boots clanged along the corridor. The hair, moustache, and eyebrows of the intruder were a shiny black, and a little trimming with scissors and a judicious use of a comb and brush had altered the appearance of the superintendent's face ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest



Words linked to "Knickerbockers" :   codpiece, pant, plural, trouser, breeches, knee breeches



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