unwhisperables

unwhisperables

English

Noun

unwhisperables pl (plural only)

1. (archaic) Underpants.
   • 1839, Henry De la Pasture, Real pearls in a false setting, page 250:

     Now Mr. Daniel Pimple was clad in white corduroy unwhisperables, and Mrs. Coffin was robed in Lyons black velvet ; anon by design, not by accident, did Mr. Daniel Pimple bring his right white knee in contact with the widow's left black one.

   • 1867, The Northern Monthly Magazine - Volume 1, page 109:

     Madam, the good Yankee housewife, who has reminiscences of having sold her husband's second best unwhisperables one day in the earlier period of her wedded life, to a young Israelite with a big basket, rich with gaudy mantel ornaments, who rode down contemtuously, and annihilated before her very face, the testimony of her very eyes, and made her think the unwhisperables aforesaid a bundle of worthlessness, "all tattered and torn"—mandam, I say, who remembers this, and the paltry gilt vase she got (and which the first baby luckily knoced over and broke with its excursive little fist one day), will hardly read with much sympathy these romantic rhapsodies concerning the children of Israel.

   • 2006, William Christen, Pauline Cushman: Spy of the Cumberland:

     The lady gives a brief account of her experience, and puts on the unwhisperables [emphasis added] in order to show her rank and regimentals [emphasis added] to an expectant crowd.