- drawer
- drawer: [16] A drawer is literally something that is ‘drawn’ or ‘pulled’ out. The coinage was perhaps based on French tiroir ‘drawer’, which was similarly derived from the verb tirer ‘pull’. The same basic notion underlies the formation of drawers [16], a superannuated term for ‘knickers’, which were originally ‘garment pulled on’.
- drawer (n.)
- mid-14c., agent noun from draw (v.). Attested from 1570s in sense of a box that can be "drawn" out of a cabinet.