breech

From Middle English breche, from Old English brēċ, from Proto-Germanic *brōkiz pl, from Proto-Germanic *brōks (“clothing for loins and thighs”). Cognate with Dutch broek, Alemannic German Bruech, Swedish brok. Doublet of vraka.

• (UK, General American) IPA^(key): /bɹiːt͡ʃ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːtʃ
• Homophone: breach

Breeches (sense 1)

breech (countable and uncountable, plural breeches)

1. (historical, now only in the plural or attributive) A garment whose purpose is to cover or clothe the buttocks. [from 11th c.]
   • 1992, Tamora Pierce, Wild Magic, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, →ISBN, page 57:

     The stallion lipped Alanna’s breech pockets. “He’s spoiled rotten.” Fishing a lump of sugar out, she fed it to him.

   • 2009, John C[oyne] McManus, American Courage, American Carnage: 7th Infantry Chronicles: The 7th Infantry Regiment’s Combat Experience, 1812 Through World War II, New York, N.Y.: Forge, →ISBN, pages 244–245:

     The typical American combat soldier in World War I wore an olive-drab tunic, stiff at the neck, breech-style trousers, and combat shoes with canvas leggings or, preferably, wrappings.

   • 2015, David Nabhan, The Pilots of Borealis, London: Gollancz, published 2020, →ISBN:

     He reached into his breech pockets. They were huge, but well-tailored and disguised properly within the folds of the pants.

2. (now rare) The buttocks or backside. [from 16th c.]
   • 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 157:

     And he made a woman for playing the whore, sit upon a great stone, on her bare breech twenty-foure houres, onely with corne and water, every three dayes, till nine dayes were past […]

   • 1736, Alexander Pope, Bounce to Fop:

     When pamper'd Cupids, bestly Veni's, / And motly, squinting Harvequini's, / Shall lick no more their Lady's Br—, / But die of Looseness, Claps, or Itch; / Fair Thames from either ecchoing Shoare / Shall hear, and dread my manly Roar.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter VIII, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book III:

     "Oho!" says Thwackum, "you will not! then I will have it out of your br—h;" that being the place to which he always applied for information on every doubtful occasion.

3. (firearms) The part of a cannon or other firearm behind the chamber. [from 16th c.]

   Coordinate term: muzzle

4. (nautical) The external angle of knee timber, the inside of which is called the throat.
5. (obstetrics) A breech birth.

breech (not comparable)

1. (obstetrics, of birth) With the hips coming out before the head.

• breech birth

breech (not comparable)

1. (obstetrics) Born, or having been born, breech.

breech (third-person singular simple present breeches, present participle breeching, simple past and past participle breeched)

1. (dated, transitive) To dress in breeches. (especially) To dress a boy in breeches or trousers for the first time (the breeching ceremony).
   • 1748-1832, Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 10:

     […] it occurred before I was breeched, and I was breeched at three years and a quarter old;

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 10, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     A great man […] anxious to know whether the blacksmith's youngest boy was breeched.

2. (dated, transitive) To beat or spank on the buttocks.
3. (transitive) To fit or furnish with a breech.

   to breech a gun

4. (transitive) To fasten with breeching.
5. (poetic, transitive, obsolete) To cover as if with breeches.
   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:

     Their daggers unmannerly breeched with gore.

• breeches

• breeches on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Becher