skeleton suit

English

Noun

skeleton suit (plural skeleton suits)

1. (historical) An outfit for small boys, popular from about 1790 to the late 1820s, consisting of a tight coat or jacket buttoned to a pair of high-waisted trousers.
   • 1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby:

     Although he could not have been less than eighteen or nineteen years old, and was tall for that age, he wore a skeleton suit, such as is usually put upon very little boys, and which, though most absurdly short in the arms and legs, was quite wide enough for his attenuated frame.