Stocking
hosiery that covers the feet and legs to the knee or higher
Stockings (also known as hose, especially in a historical context) are close-fitting, variously elastic garments covering the leg from the foot up to the knee or possibly part or all of the thigh. Also it can cover up to the hips. Stockings vary in color, design, and transparency. Today, stockings are primarily worn for fashion and aesthetics, usually in association with mid-length or short skirts.
History
Historically, even though the word sock is at least as ancient in origin, what men normally wore in the medieval period were referred to as hose.
The word stock used to refer to the bottom "stump" part of the body, and by analogy the word was used to refer to the one-piece covering of the lower trunk and limbs of the 15th century—essentially tights consisting of the upper-stocks (later to be worn separately as knee breeches) and nether-stocks (later to be worn separately as stockings). (See Hose.)
In 1560, the merchant Thomas Gresham tried to buy silk hose ("sylke howsse") for Elizabeth I in Antwerp, but not finding any, instead sent her measurements to Spain for 20 pairs to be made. As a New Year's Day gift in January 1562, Sybil Penn gave Elizabeth I a pair of "silk knytt hoose". These were knitted silk stockings, and in subsequent years were supplied by the queen's silkwoman Alice Montague.
Before the 1590s, stockings were knitted by hand or constructed from woven cloth.
The public source identifies “Stocking” as hosiery that covers the feet and legs to the knee or higher. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Stocking, hosiery and covers.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q193017. The Library of Congress control number is sh87004334. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1560 and 1562.
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This entry incorporates text from “Stocking” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.