The Merriam-Webster Dictionary dates the word "bell-bottoms" to 1898, and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to 1891, but the shanty "Bell Bottom Trousers" dates from around 1865 and it is known that by 1813, US Navy sailors were wearing bell-bottoms, and they must have had a term for them. The term 'flares' appears to be a British thing, with the Americans using 'bell-bottoms' to refer to flares of any size. In Britain, of course, 'bell-bottom' is a much more stringent phrase, referring only to the bigger flares. (This site uses the British neomenclature.) The OED dates the term 'flares' from 1964, just as they began to come back into fashion. It seems that the French were either a long way ahead in terms of fashion, or a very long way behind, or maybe only ahead linguistically, because they were using "pattes d'éléphant" by 1929, thirty-five years and one world war earlier.

In contrast, we can be absolutely certain about the date of 'X-flares', as applied to trousers, because it was us that did it, in December 2001. X-flares are, of course, the biggest, flariest flares possible. This derives from the astrophysics term, which is applied to solar flares. In that field, X-flares are the biggest, flariest flares possible.

Many languages in which translations have been found, seem to be using a translation of 'bell-bottomed trousers' (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Czech, Polish, Afrikaans), and a number of others make similar reference to the shape. French and Italian refer to flares as 'elephant-legged' trousers, and this may, in turn, have contributed to the rare English phrase "elephant bells" for very large flares. The French term has also been abbreviated in more than one way. In Burundi, "pattes" is the usual term, whereas in Europe, "pat'def", or occasionally "pattes d'ef" is used. Bell-bottoms, in the British sense, translate to 'big-bottomed trousers' in French and Portuguese, as does the French for bootleg, the accepted Irish term, and the Romanian term for all flares. Hungarian talks of trapeze trousers, and this is a reference to its shape (c.f. 'trapezium'), not to a location, although I'm sure you could wear flares on a trapeze. A similar phrase is used in Croato-Serbian.

The Dutch term is rather mundane, being simply 'trouser with wide legs', and its dialect forms (Limburgs and Frisian) follow suit; the Icelandic term is similarly unimaginative. In a few cases, the sailor connection has been exploited, and Polish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish, Welsh and Afrikaans fall into this category. A few languages have transliterated, rather than translated the term ie have used the sound, rather than the meaning of the English word in their own languages. Japanese uses "fureaa" for flares, the Irish use "fléarcha", and Welsh has acquired 'fflêrs'. Korean has similarly acquired 'pantalo' (and 'pantalo-u' - flared) presumably from the French, and it only refers to bell-bottoms, with 'pa-chi' covering trousers generally.

Perhaps more interesting are those languages which have entirely independent and unlikely terms for flares. German uses "Schlaghose", from 'hose' for trousers, and "Schlag" being variously translated as 'hit', 'strike', 'blow', 'impact' and so on. It seems most likely that Schlag meaning flare comes from Schlag meaning the chime (of a bell), which leads us back to the bell-bottom. (In Lëtzebuergesch, the German dialect / language of Luxembourg, the phrase "Schlagboxen" is translated as 'flapping trousers' which probably clarifies the German translation a bit.) The Danish have three terms with three different literal meanings. Their first is 'sailor's trousers', their second 'trousers with swing' (ie trousers that do swing), and finally "susebukser" which is harder to translate. "Bukser" is trousers, and "suse" is variously translated as 'whistling', 'singing', 'whispering', 'sighing', 'whizzing', 'zipping', 'rushing', 'tearing along', and 'scorching along'. Like the German "Schlag", this is imposible to translate perfectly, but the intention is clear. Another language which describes the motion of the trousers is Indonesian, whose phrase translates as wafting trousers or trousers like a kite.

A further group of languages have a word for 'to flare' and construct their flare-word from that. This is true of Russian, Bulgarian, Swedish, Vietnamese and Creek (Muskogee). Perhaps the most unusual is the word from Cockney Rhyming Slang, an artificial dialect from London. Here, flares are referred to as "Lionels", after the entertainer Lionel Blair, whose name rhymes with 'flares', or "Grosvenors", after Grosvenor Square, which also rhymes with 'flare'. Contrary to a common misconception about Cockney Rhyming Slang, the rhyming part is not pronounced. One does not climb the 'apples and pears', nor is one married to one's 'trouble and strife', but one may don one's 'titfer' and one's 'Lionels' and have a 'butchers' at one's wallet to see if one is 'boracic', and so on.

The artificial languages are all based on existing languages, so by applying usually simple rules, one can find a translation for flares. Similarly, Latin, being a dead language, has to have a word invented for it, and I have chosen 'BRACÆ LAXANDUS', noting that the Romans did not have lower-case letters.

There are still several languages whose word for flares we know, but not its derivation. There are also a great many languages whose word(s) for flares, if they exist, are unknown to us. For instance, although the fashion for flares reached India in the 1960s and 1970s, there is no Hindi word for flares. There are probably even alternative terms in languages we've already listed. If you can help to fill in the gaps on any count please send us an electropost message and let us know.