Sans-culottes (French for "without knee-breeches") was a term create around 1790 - 1792 by the French aristocracy to describe the poorer members of the Third Estate, according to the dominant theory because they usually wore pantaloons (full-length trousers or pants) instead of the chic knee-length culotte. The term came to refer to the ill-clad and ill-equipped volunteers of the Revolutionary army during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars, but, above all, to the working class radicals of the Revolution. From this comes the now slightly archaic term sansculottism or sans-culottism, meaning extreme egalitarian republican principles.