UNDERWEAR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does underwear mean? 

• UNDERWEAR (noun)
  The noun UNDERWEAR has 1 sense:

1. undergarment worn next to the skin and under the outer garments

  Familiarity information: UNDERWEAR used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNDERWEAR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Undergarment worn next to the skin and under the outer garments

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

underclothes; underclothing; underwear

Hypernyms ("underwear" is a kind of...):

undergarment; unmentionable (a garment worn under other garments)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "underwear"):

BVD; BVD's (trademark for men's underwear)

intimate apparel; lingerie (women's underwear and nightclothes)

long johns (warm underwear with long legs)

skivvies ((used in the plural) men's underwear consisting of cotton undershirt and underpants)

 Context examples 

If you have symptoms, they may include blood on your underwear or on toilet paper after a bowel movement, blood in your stool, or constipation or diarrhea lasting more than a week.

(Colonic Polyps, NIH: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Diseases)

Change your underwear every day.

(Pinworms, NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

. . . I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

The prolonged and tumultuous argument that ended by herding us into that room eludes me, though I have a sharp physical memory that, in the course of it, my underwear kept climbing like a damp snake around my legs and intermittent beads of sweat raced cool across my back.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)