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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

underwear.

Clothes worn next to the skin, underneath outer clothing.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈʌndəwɛə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈʌndɚˌwɛɹ/General-American/ˈʌndɚwɚ/General-American
  1. Clothes worn next to the skin, underneath outer clothing.

    uncountable · usually
  2. Underpants (boxers, briefs, panties, etc) and often bras.

    colloquial · uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁én Proto-Indo-European *-tér Proto-Indo-European *h₁entér Proto-Indo-European *h₂én Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-? Proto-Indo-European *-dʰi ? Proto-Indo-European *(H)n̥dʰí Proto-Indo-European *-ér Proto-Indo-European *(H)n̥dʰér Proto-Germanic *under Proto-West Germanic *undar Old English under- Middle English under- English under- Proto-Indo-European *wes- Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti Proto-Indo-European *woséyeti Proto-Germanic *wazjaną Proto-West Germanic *waʀjan Old English werian Middle English weren English wear English -wear English underwear From under- + -wear. Compare Dutch ondergoed, German Unterwäsche, Swedish underkläder.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.