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suspenders

UK/səˈspɛndəz/US/səˈspɛndɚz/
nounC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — suspend sits at #5,062leans spoken

Suspenders are the elastic straps over the shoulders that hold trousers up. Clipped or buttoned at the waistband.

This is the American word, and British English says braces for exactly the same thing, which is one of the more reliable transatlantic traps, since British suspenders are the straps that hold up stockings. That misunderstanding has caused a good deal of confusion in both directions. Braces are having a return in Britain, and a belt worn with them at the same time is a small badge of anxiety.

Alwayzsinging25 · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of suspenders

  1. 1nounsuspendersStraps worn over the shoulders to hold up trousers.C1

    “He wore a bow tie and red suspenders.”

Also accepted in games: braces

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *(s)pend-

  2. Latin

    suspendo

  3. Old French

    sospendre

  4. English

    suspend

  5. English, today

    suspenders

From suspend + -er. Compare hanger. suspend comes from Old French sospendre, from Latin suspendo.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 5 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

suspenders in the wild

  • A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders.

    Suspension bridge

  • Simple suspension bridges, which lack vertical suspenders, have a long history in many mountainous regions worldwide.

    Suspension bridge

  • In British English, a suspender belt, or suspenders for short, is a garment used to hold up stockings.

    Suspenders

  • Spaghetti straps are fragile suspenders meant to support a light clothing.

    Spaghetti strap

  • As an undergarment, a corselet can be open-style (with suspenders attached) or panty-style.

    Corselette

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the suspendo family

suspensionsuspend

suspenders — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others