smallclothes

Etymology

small + clothes

noun

1. Knee-length breeches, worn especially in the 18th century.
   Even fashions, otherwise convenient, as the trousers that have so long taken place of smallclothes, often perhaps owe their continuance to some general defect . . . 1841, Leigh Hunt, Essays
2. (Britain, archaic) Underwear and other small items of clothing.
   One hand slid up her thigh and underneath her smallclothes. 2000, George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords: A Song of Fire and Ice, page 701
   Are red socks a secret handshake, a mark of Etonhood, of an allegiance to the place both claimed and disclaimed? And having seen one pair I'm noticing them all over the place, a conspiracy of smallclothes. April 10 2007, Tobias Hill, “School Stories”, in The Guardian, UK, retrieved 2014-05-17