Pants or trousers
What is the difference between pants or trousers?
Are trousers for men and pants for women?. I would like to know your answers.
27 Answers
In the UK we would never use the word "pants" for trousers without a modifier - we might (just) say "cargo pants", but it would be very unusual.
Pants here come into the category of what my grandmother would have called "unmentionables" , and are very definately underwear.
Jeans are jeans, but everything else, male or female, is "trousers".
Pants are for both. Trousers are for men. Trousers is not said very often, pants is much more used than trousers.
To me, the difference between trousers and pants is about 35 years. My mother's generation called them trousers. My generation calls them pants. We call them dress pants or casual pants. There are jogging pants, painter's pants, cargo pants, khaki pants, camo pants and denim pants (blue jeans)
These are the terms used in my region by my generation. 
)
My mother called women's pants "slacks"
Remember "Trouser Suits?" That came in I suppose late sixties or early seventies and was part of the female liberation politics where woman would no longer accept dress codes at work and emphasised this by wearing trouser suits at work.
Good move, revolutionary at the time.
pant 2 (pnt)
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- Trousers. Often used in the plural.
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- Underpants. Often used in the plural.
Idiom:
with (one's) pants down Slang In an embarrassing position.
[Short for pantaloon.]
Word History: One would not expect a word for a modern article of clothing to come ultimately from the name of a 4th-century Roman Catholic saint, but that is the case with the word pants. It can be traced back to Pantaleon, the patron saint of Venice. He became so closely associated with the inhabitants of that city that the Venetians were popularly known as Pantaloni. Consequently, among the commedia dell'arte's stock characters the representative Venetian (a stereotypically wealthy but miserly merchant) was called Pantalone, or Pantalon in French. In the mid-17th century the French came to identify him with one particular style of trousers, a style which became known as pantaloons in English. Pantaloons was later applied to another style that came into fashion in the late 18th century, tight-fitting garments that had begun to replace knee breeches. After that pantaloons was used to refer to trousers in general. The abbreviation of pantaloons to pants met with some resistance at first; it was considered vulgar and, as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, "a word not made for gentlemen, but 'gents.'" First found in the writings of Edgar Allan Poe in 1840, pants has replaced the "gentleman's word" in English and has lost all obvious connection to Saint Pantaleon.
Yes, Nila, trousers is the word, pants are not used for "trousers" in Europe
What would you call khaki slacks? Slacks? And cargo pants? I always figured trousers were more generic than just the bottom half of a suit. - KevinB
Slacks" were usually trousers that women wore. When my mother or her friends wore "slacks" they were usually quite smart with a crease ironed into the front of the legs.
"Cargo pants" is new to me,I presume it's a US expression?
Still, I must confess that I'm not much of a fashionista and tend to just wear jeans. I have few clothes and only replace them when they wear out. 
although I do like silk. Maybe there are lots of distinctions I just haven't noticed :-
"Trousers" do have that generic quality but they traditionally tend to be "smart".
As in "The colonel wore a dark blue blazer and trousers."
Birdland wore jeans and a polo-neck jersey.
In the UK "pants" suggest underwear. As in underpants for a man and knickers for a woman. Also, if something is ridiculous or stupid it's "pants" as in "crap" of no value. Trousers are worn with a suit or are quite smart, otherwise it's jeans.
In the UK "pants" suggest underwear. As in underpants for a man and knickers for a woman.
Is that like that?. I mean, if you say "pants" in the UK, you are talking about underwear. Then, you should say "trousers" all the time. I mean, trousers for men and for women.
Pants is short for Pantaloons. Only wowsers wear trousers.
We wear ,Daks , Strides, Jeans, Shorts, Pants.
Underwear, would be , Jocks, Y fronts, Boxers. 
I don’t think I have ever used the work “Trousers”.
Then there are jodphurs!!! Are they called horseriding pants in the USA? Or are they not worn at all, rather 'chaps'?
Jodhpurs are called "jodhpurs", at least, by the people who wear them. Those who don't know about "horsey" stuff, might call them "riding pants" (not being familiar with the proper terminology). Jodhpurs are worn when using "eastern"/"English" tack.
When using western tack, the most common garment would be jeans. Chaps are an additional garment worn over jeans that encases the legs but have an open seat. The front of the legs (upper portion of the legs when one is mounted) is usually leather and provides additional protection to the legs (especially when one is roping).
What jeezle said - pants are for both men and women, trousers are for men. Most Americans say pants, trousers is more common in England, I think.
Pants in England are the underwear men wear / I think they are called Briefs ot shorts in America.
Slacks is very common in England for the trousers that women wear.
One particular type of pants are referred to as Y-fronts for obvious reasons.
Nick Park made this wonderful 1993 film The Wrong Trousers. He's in the UK, which tells you which name is common there.
