Stockinged

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. A garment made of elastic or woolen material that fits snugly around the leg and often reaches above the knee for warmth or style
2. An item of clothing designed to encase the leg, typically made from thin or thick fabric and often used for fashion or insulation purposes
3. Wearing close-fitting coverings made of a lightweight fabric that stretch over the legs

Etymology: Stockinged is a straightforward formation: the noun "stocking" with the suffix "-ed" added to describe someone wearing them. The noun itself goes back to Old English "stoc", a word for a stick, trunk or post, which later came to mean a tree-trunk or block of wood. Its link to clothing is a matter of shape and sense: the close-fitting covering on the leg was named after the stiff, stick-like form of the wooden object, and the stocking reached English as a garment name through that noun. The "-ing" in "stocking" is a suffix that turns the stem into a noun, and "-ed" on the adjective marks a state of having or wearing something. Put together, the adjective simply means "dressed in stockings," and it has been used in that plain sense for as long as the garment itself has been named.