Talk:knicker drawer

RFD discussion: August 2022–January 2023
Good luck convincing me this is not SOP Dunderdool (talk) 09:59, 19 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep per WT:HOSPITAL. A would be thought to contain  in US English, rather than the correct definition. Binarystep (talk) 10:20, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Would you accept pants drawer for those reasons? Dunderdool (talk) 18:26, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep, I suspect it's Br. English. Every self-respecting female has a knicker drawer, I guess. DonnanZ (talk) 12:54, 19 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Undecided - it seems like SOP to me but I’m not sure how confusing it would be to Americans. As Dunderdool (talk) says though, we would probably need an entry for pants drawer if we keep this but also knickers drawer (as knickers, as well as knicker, can mean knickerbocker(s)) - pant drawer and underpant drawer don’t seem to be actually used though and I wouldn’t support the creation of underpants drawer, sock drawer, socks drawer, pyjama drawer, pyjamas drawer, pajama drawer or pajamas drawer as there’s no room for confusion with those phrases. Overlordnat1 (talk) 01:26, 22 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete: just because a word means something different in the US vs UK doesn't mean we need every phrase containing it. That knicker(s) and hence knicker drawer is now rare in the US is the one thing that gives me pause, since that could make it a dialect-specific phrase like banana peel ... but because that extends to any phrase containing knickers, I don't think it saves knicker drawer: blue knickers and knicker(s) sale and they wore Union Jack knickers likewise differ in meaning between the US (where they'd be little used) and UK . . . because knickers differs in meaning, knickers is the idiomatic word, not *knicker drawer or *wear Union Jack knickers. (Ditto if you replace knickers with pants: the difference in US vs UK pants doesn't make *wear Union Jack pants also idiomatic.) Hence, I disagree WT:HOSPITAL applies, going by its description ("terms that are not recognized in a different dialect although all constituents are understood") : here, it's a constituent which may not be understood correctly between dialects, the phrase is correctly understood as meaning knicker + drawer = a drawer for knickers, and insofar as they use the word knickers both would refer to a drawer specifically for knickers as a knicker drawer (unlike how they differ in whether the peel on a banana is a banana peel or banana skin), just like blue knickers are knickers that are blue and knickers that are blue would be described as blue knickers, despite the dialects having different ideas of what knickers are. - -sche (discuss) 04:37, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete. A phrase like "He took a pair of knickers out of the drawer" would also have monumentally different implications in the US vs. the UK, but I don't think anyone would seriously suggest creating an entry for it. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:29, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment: I suspect WF doesn't wear knickers, but this normally uses the singular form of (a pair of, pairs of) knickers, as explained at, although usage of knickers drawer can be found. I think it's worth keeping as an example of that. DonnanZ (talk) 11:16, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep - this refers to underwear, not just knickers. Theknightwho (talk) 19:34, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I personally say ‘socks drawer’ to describe the drawer where I keep both my socks and (under)pants but I still don’t think socks drawer deserves an entry on that basis (though the ‘banana skin/peel’ and ‘in (the) hospital’ argument is almost convincing, so I’m still abstaining) Overlordnat1 (talk) 21:51, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete as SoP. — Sgconlaw (talk) 11:53, 7 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Abstain. So what does "knicker drawer" contain? It does not contain "knicker", but from knicker we learn: "(used attributively as a modifier) Of or relating to knickers." We have to navigate to knickers, and there we get "(UK, New Zealand) Women's underpants." And lemmings do not have the phrase: . The entry sure does a convenience service since the user does not need to click through to get to the meaning, but other than that, the case seems hard to make. OTOH, if WT:HOSPITAL is taken seriously ("Terms that are not recognized in a different dialect although all constituents are understood"), this could be a keeper, except that the part "all constituents are understood" is probably to be read as "all constituents are understood [in that dialect]", and it is not true that the constituent "knickers" is understood in the U.S. to mean woman's underwear. knicker drawer does not have a label, but if one believes the label in knickers, it probably should have one. The arguments made by -sche and Chuck have some force. But telephone box and banana peel given as examples at WT:HOSPITAL do not seem so much different from this, do they? One difference is that telephone box and its synonyms are in the lemmings (dictionaries). Is there anything like consensual support for WT:HOSPITAL or is it a case of someone editing the surviving idioms page without consensus, like so many others? --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:24, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * RFD-kept: no consensus for deletion (WT:VPRFD). --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:53, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Geographical region of usage
Like, is it used in UK and not USA? Equinox ◑ 09:40, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Like many such words, knickers and knicker drawer seem to be used in Britain and what I think of as the 'linguistic Commonwealth' (the actual Commonwealth+Ireland-Canada). --Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:46, 8 April 2023 (UTC)


 * This phrase sucks. I'll try to get it deleted again next year, and every year after that until it is gone It is probably (talk) 21:10, 18 April 2023 (UTC)