breeches
Contents
EnglishEdit
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Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for breeches in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)
Alternative formsEdit
- britches (Appalachia, Southern US)
EtymologyEdit
Middle English brech, brek, Old English brēc, plural of brōc (“breech, breeches”); akin to Old Norse brók (“breeches”), Danish brog, Dutch broek, German Bruch f; compare Latin bracae ( > French braies) which is of Celtic origin. Compare brail.
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
breeches
- plural of breech
- A garment worn by men, covering the hips and thighs; smallclothes.
- 1829, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, "The Devil's Thoughts,"
- And how then was the Devil drest?
- Oh! he was in his Sunday's best:
- His jacket was red and his breeches were blue,
- And there was a hole where the tail came through.
- 1829, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, "The Devil's Thoughts,"
- (informal) Trousers; pantaloons; britches.
Related termsEdit
- breeches buoy: in the life-saving service, a pair of canvas breeches depending from an annular or beltlike life buoy which is usually of cork; this contrivance, inclosing the person to be rescued, is hung by short ropes from a block which runs upon the hawser stretched from the ship to the shore, and is drawn to land by hauling lines
- breeches pipe: a forked pipe forming two branches united at one end
- knee-breeches: breeches coming to the knee, and buckled or fastened there; smallclothes
- open-kneed breeches: wide-legged breeches ending below the knee
- wear the breeches: see wear the pants, wear the trousers
- too big for one's britches: unacceptably cocky
TranslationsEdit
a garment worn by men, covering the hips and thighs