broeks, plural noun

Forms:
Also brooks.
Origin:
Afrikaans, EnglishShow more Afrikaans broek pair of trousers + English plural suffix -s.
colloquial
a. Trousers or slacks for either sex. Cf. broek sense 2.
1861 Queenstown Free Press 4 Dec. (Pettman)Socks of course he wore none, and the tanned broeks had slightly contracted in their washing.
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 91Broeks,..The common form of the word among the English colonists of the Eastern Province of the Cape Colony; a pair of trousers.
[1958 I. Vaughan Diary 38A new man teacher has come to teach. We call him broeks becos he wears such wide trousers.]
1980 A. Dangor in M. Mutloatse Forced Landing 162‘Just get away from here before I bogger you up too!’ ‘Orraaight, don’t piss in your broeks!’
1989 J. Hobbs Thoughts in Makeshift Mortuary 174You had to drop your broeks and sit down quick so as not to look down the hole into the blackness.
1990 Sunday Times 22 Apr. (Mag. Sect.) 5Michelle B— with her brooks.
b. broekies.
c1966 M. Jabour in New S. Afr. Writing 96‘He pushed me down, he threw mud on me, and,’ she paused dramatically, ‘he wanted to pull my broeks down.’
1973 Fair Lady 7 Mar. 19My little one’s ‘broeks’ which show ever so slightly when she marches off to school.
1975 Darling 29 Jan. 103I get to be fitted out (frilly pink tutu, pink satin broeks and tinsel crown).
1978 [see merrem sense 1].
Trousers or slacks for either sex.
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18611990