"Baggies" is also an alternative term for boardshorts (see below).^[11][12]

Short trousers, terminating three to four inches above the knee, commonly worn by men in Bermuda (with knee-socks and a blazer and tie) for business attire and even at cocktail parties.^[13][14] They are available in a wide range of colors, ranging from conservative grey and navy, to brighter hues such as orange, green and pink.^[14] Despite their name, they are not of Bermudian origin, but were originally designed around 1900 for military wear by the British armed forces in tropical climates.^[14] From the 1920s onwards these military uniform shorts began to be copied by Bermudian tailors and civilians, and were subsequently taken up by tourists who spread the style around the world.^[14] The tourists who appropriated the style wore Bermuda shorts almost exclusively as casual wear.^[14]

In the early 1990s Bermuda shorts became accepted in France as a fashionable option for women, although since the 1930s they had been increasingly established as an option for American women's fashionable sportswear.^[15][16] In America, despite widespread criticism, Bermuda shorts were taken up by male and female students on college campuses from the 1920s and 1930s onwards, and by the 1950s, were widely worn.^[16] In early 21st century America, women's Bermuda shorts are known as "city shorts", and are usually knee-length, resembling a pencil skirt.^[14]

In 1970 the company Quiksilver offered a highly successful boardshort design that rapidly gained a reputation among surfers as the best to be had.^[18] They would later pioneer a line of boardshorts specifically designed for the female wearer.^[12] Other leading boardshort manufacturers include Billabong and Rip Curl.^[12]

By 2010, the boardshort was widely worn as a fashionable garment beyond the beach, including as clubwear and in schools.^[17] In the early 21st century, polyester is increasingly used, often blended with other fibres such as Lycra, elastane, or spandex, creating an ultrasuede effect.^[19]

Elastic-waisted soft fabric shorts usually worn as underwear, but originally designed for wear by boxing participants. In their current form "boxers" were introduced in 1925 by Jacob Golomb (founder of the sports equipment and clothing company Everlast) as an alternative to the leather-belted trunks that boxers typically wore.^[20] They subsequently became an alternative to long underwear as well.^[21] Men's boxers as undergarments began to be presented in novelty prints and patterns from the late 1950s onwards.^[22] During the 1980s and 1990s women began to wear boxer shorts paired with T-shirts as loungewear or sleepwear.^[23] Boxer briefs, which emerged in the 1990s, are an underwear-specific variation on boxer shorts, but made from elastic knit fabric for a snug fit.^[24]

Since the 1980s, 'bike shorts' have also been worn as fashion garments, although these versions often lack the internal padding and construction required by cyclists.^[40][41]

However, the term can describe many styles of shorts made from denim,^[42] such as cut-offs (see above) or Daisy Dukes (see above).^[37] The term "jorts", defined simply as denim shorts, was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013.^[44]

While the term "hotpants" is used generically to describe short shorts (see below) made in any material, similar garments had been worn since the 1930s.^[54] Very short men's shorts may also be occasionally called hotpants.^[54]

Trail running shorts are typically made longer and in harder-wearing fabric that is less likely to catch and tear on protruding branches.^[58]

The traditional grey flannel shorts associated with British school uniform had become well-established by the 1920s, when they were knee-length or just above knee-length.^[60][61] Up until the 1950s school shorts were also described as 'knickers' in tailoring catalogues and jargon.^[62] This term possibly originated as an abbreviation of knickerbockers, which began being worn by schoolboys for sports in the 1880s.^[63] As the term 'knickers' had become synonymous with panties in the 20th century, it was rarely used colloquially for shorts. By 2004, a study of British private schools noted that traditional grey school shorts had become denoters of private or public school uniform, as they were no longer required wear by state schools.^[64] Similar tailored shorts form part of school uniform in a number of countries, including Australia, Singapore, South Africa and New Zealand,^[59] and are also part of the uniform worn by children in organisations such as the Cub Scouts.