Is there any real defined difference between hold-ups, or thigh-highs, and stockings as there is with tights and pantyhose? For example, stockings are so-called as they are complemented with a suspender belt, so when somebody states that they have seen a person wearing stockings, hold-ups cannot really be included. Just a thought...
It depends. I wear thigh-highs a lot, probably more than 'stockings', but I still refer to my hold-ups as stockings. After all, hold ups are just stockings that hold themselves up without the need for a suspender belt. That is my opinion.
Pantyhose have a panty, stockings don't. I consider hold-ups to be stockings for sure.
I must confess to having experienced some confusion early on regarding the UK terms for hosiery (and some lingerie) vs. the US terminology. I wish there were some type of glossary so that those of us on this side of the pond (and the newbies) could clearly understand and be understood. Oh well.
For the record the term 'stockings' has become corrupted here in the US. It used to refer strictly to hosiery needing a garterbelt in order to be worn properly. Now, I am sad to report, it generally means pantyhose. When I go shopping for my wife and I ask to see the stocking selection I am invariably directed to pantyhose. Many places no longer sell stockings at all. What you in the U.K. call stay-ups, we in the U.S. generally call thigh-highs. You call pantyhose tights and we call them... ah... pantyhose. Tights in the US are usually opaque thigh-highs or cotton or woollen pantyhose.
Suspenders here in the US are worn by men to keep their pants up. In the U.K. you call them, I believe, braces. We call what you call suspenders; garterbelts.
What you call hold-ups we should call thigh-highs, garter, or more correctly, gartered stockings. But, as I said, fewer and fewer sales people recognise the difference between stockings and pantyhose... they're all pantyhose to today's sales clerks.
Don't even get me started on panties vs. knickers... That's a whole discussion for another day!
