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Bloomers

Apparel
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Loose gathered undergarments or short trousers worn beneath a skirt.

Detailed Definition
Bloomers are loose trousers gathered at the waist and often at the knee or ankle, historically worn as underclothing or as practical dress for exercise. They carry associations with reform, cycling, childhood, and changing expectations of women's movement. In poetry, bloomers can make hidden freedom visible beneath a conventional skirt, turning an apparently modest figure into someone prepared to climb, run, work, or escape.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Her bloomers showed beneath the lifted hem as she ran laughing through the orchard”; Bloomers can evoke historical dress, modesty, movement, or changing ideas about women’s clothing; “The old photograph softened the woman’s bloomers into clouds of cotton”; A poem may use bloomers to place a speaker in a nineteenth-century scene or a comic memory
Additional Notes
Bloomers are loose, gathered undergarments or short trousers worn beneath a skirt. They were associated with nineteenth-century dress reform and later with children’s clothing, sportswear, and modesty garments. The term may also describe loose, old-fashioned women’s trousers.
Also Known As
Pantalettes Knickerbockers
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