unmentionables

«unmentionables» in Mova's school dictionary: underwear: pants, knickers, bras — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (plural only, «unmentionables»; adjective «unmentionable»)

meaning for a pupil

1) (euphemism, humorous) underwear: pants, knickers, bras. tree →

2) (adjective, «unmentionable») too shocking or embarrassing to talk about. tree →

sense in the lessons

An old-fashioned, coy and now jokey word for underwear, used in all English-speaking countries; it plays on the idea that underwear should not be mentioned. The adjective is used for embarrassing subjects.

examples

• (joke) Don't hang your unmentionables on the front fence! tree →
• (shop) Unmentionables are on the second floor. tree →
• (holiday) I packed everything except my unmentionables. tree →
• (chat) the washing machine ate my unmentionables tree →
• (old book) Ladies' unmentionables were never shown in shop windows. tree →
• (adjective) Her cooking was unmentionable — truly awful! tree →

note

Trap: only plural as a noun. A joke word — in a shop, say «underwear». The adjective «unmentionable» = too bad to talk about.

In the corpora

• "Unmentionables" is a humorous word for underwear.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «unmentionables» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.