Can any Americans out there tell me the difference between "a pant suit" and "a suit"?
@Pedalville pant suit to "suit" is the blouse to the dress shirt
@Pedalville ie it's a formal (typically used in business settings) outfit worn by women that is an adaptation of an outfit historically worn by men.
@nick Thanks... I get that... I just don't understand the need to add the "pant", it seems so unnecessary.
I guess it's because here in the UK people tend to just use "suit", in general usage nobody feels the need to specify the format of the bottom half.
@Pedalville at a time, women paired blazers with skirts or dresses. Changing to trousers was a new outfit so it got a new term.
it's easy to forget that for a long time (in the past, which was more overtly sexist than now), women didn't wear pants as a "rule" and pants were synonymous with male "superiority". this gave rise to the the idiom "who wears the pants in the family."