Trousers (plural word, aka pants in America) are an outerwear, lower body garment consisting of a separate tube-like covering for each leg, contoured more of less closely to the shape of the legs, depending upon the dictates of fashion, and joined together about the hips and waist. Trousers are fastened at the waist and, typically, extend from there down to about the ankles, though they can be somewhat shorter. Similarly styled but significantly shorter garments (terminating above the knee) are called shorts.