Where does the word “chaparajos” come from and What does chaps mean in Spanish?

We picked the word chaparajos up from our Mexican neighbors and have abbreviated it to chaps.

Rightly, we should say chaparreras, a term used by Mexicans for a kind of leather breeches worn over the trousers to protect the legs when riding through chaparral, a dense tangle of dwarf oak and thorny shrub common in the Southwest.