Forms: 1 bréc, (bræc), 3 brych, 3–5 brech, 4–6 breche, 4–7 breeche, 6 breache, briech, bryche, 6–7 breetch, 7 brich, 7–9 britch, 9 breach, 5– breech. [Com. Teut.: OE. bréc (:—bróec), pl. of *bróc fem. = OFris. brók, pl. brék, (MDu. broec, Du. broek), OHG. bruoh (MHG. bruoch, mod.Ger. bruch, obs. in 18th c., but still in Switz. pl. brüch), ON. brók, pl. brœkr (Sw. brōk, Da. brōg):—OTeut. type *brôk-s fem. monosyl. ‘article of clothing for the loins and thighs.’

1

  Often stated to be an adoption of L. brāca (also brăca, bracca), or its Gaulish original, which was app. *brācca, (see BROGUE) clothing for the legs (‘barbara tegmina crurum’ Vergil Æn. XI. 777); but *brôk-s has all the marks of an original Teutonic word = Aryan bhrâg-s. The Celtic brācca is considered by Dr. Whitley Stokes to be phonetically descended from an earlier *brāg-na, a derivative of the same root bhrāg-, and so cognate with the Teutonic.]

2

  † 1.  A garment covering the loins and thighs: at first perh. only a ‘breech-cloth’; later reaching to the knees.

3

  a.  in OE. bréc, plural of bróc.

4

a. 1000.  Reg. St. Benot, 55 (Bosw.). Brec, femoralia.

5

a. 1100.  Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 328. Femoralia, bræc.

6

  b.  in ME. usually brēch, breech as a sing.

7

a. 1100.  Cott. Cleop. Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 433. Lumbare, gyrdel oððe brec.

8

a. 1225.  Ancr. R., 420. Sum wummon … wereð þe brech of heare ful wel i-knotted.

9

c. 1380.  Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. II. 3. Joon hadde neiþer coote ne breche.

10

c. 1400.  Maundev., xxiii. (1839), 250. Alle the women weren Breech, as wel as men.

11

1480.  Caxton, Chron. Eng., cci. 183. The good man … come thyder al naked sauf his breche.

12

1535.  Coverdale, Jer. xiii. 1. Get the a lynnen breche, and gyrde it aboute thy loynes.

13

1562.  J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 16. To beg a breeche of a bare arst man.

14

1642.  Jack Puffe, 39, in Hazl., E. P. P., IV. 316. With out-stucke bomm, streight breech, and spit at side.

15

  c.  Now always in pl. Breeches, or a pair of breeches (perh. not so used before 15th c.). Breeches are distinguished from trousers by coming only just below the knee, but dialectally (and humorously) breeches includes trousers.

16

[c. 1205.  Lay., 18028. Heo … gripen heore cniues & of mid here breches.

17

1382.  Wyclif, Gen. iii. 7. They soweden to gidre leeves of a fige tree, & maden hem brechis.]

18

a. 1500.  Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 629. Bracce, brechys.

19

1555.  Fardle Facions, I. iv. 41. Some make them brieches of the heares of their heades.

20

1560.  Bible (Genev.), Gen. iii. 7. They sewed figge tree leaues together, and made themselues breeches.

21

1591.  Spenser, M. Hubberd, 211. His breeches were made after the new cut.

22

1661.  Pepys, Diary, 6 April. To put both his legs through one of his knees of his breeches.

23

1784.  Cowper, Task, I. 10. As yet black breeches were not.

24

17[?].  Chestnut Horse. Dreamed of his boots, his spurs, his leather breeches, Of leaping five-barred gates, and crossing ditches.

25

1858.  Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., II. 179. Their trousers being tucked up till they were strictly breeches.

26

  2.  Hence the phrase, said of a wife, To wear the breeches (breech obs.): to assume the authority of the husband; to rule, be ‘master.’

27

[1553.  T. Wilson, Rhet., 89. As though the good man of the house weare no breeches or that the Graye Mare were the better horse.]

28

1568.  T. Howell, Newe Sonn. (1879), 151. He is a cokes: and worthy strokes, whose wife the Breeches beare.

29

1593.  Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., V. v. 24. That you might still haue worne the Petticoat, And ne’er haue stolne the Breech from Lancaster.

30

1600.  Maides Metam., IV. in Bullen, O. Pl. (1882), I. 147. This is leape yeare: Women weare breetches, petticoats are deare.

31

1606.  Choice, Chance & C. (1881), 22. She that is master of her husband must weare the breeches.

32

1665.  Glanvill, Sceps. Sci., xvi. 100. The Female rules, and our Affections wear the breeches.

33

1807.  W. Irving, Salmag. (1824), 102. The violent inclination she felt to wear the breeches.

34

  3.  A term of ridicule applied to the Commonwealth coinage, suggested by the arrangement of two shields on the reverse side of the coin.

35

1673.  Ld. Lucas, Sp. in Ho. Peers, 3. All the Parliament money called Breeches, (a fit Stamp for the Coyn of the Rump) is wholly vanished.

36

  4.  The part of the body covered by this garment; the buttocks, posteriors, rump, seat. (Instances of this sense before 16th c. are very doubtful: the OE. passage, so often cited, as well as the ME. ones, prob. belong to 1.)

37

  [c. 1000.  Sax. Leechd., II. 146/3. Nim gate hær smec under þa brec wiþ þær ræʓe reosan.

38

c. 1305.  Edmund Conf., 164, in E. E. P. (1862), 75. He was byneþe his brech igurd faste ynouȝ Wiþ a strong corde.

39

1480.  Caxton, Descr. Brit., 40. At her brech out and home They hong their money.]

40

  a. 1533.  Frith, Disp. Purg. (1829), 110. Then hath he made a rod for his own breech.

41

1599.  Greene, Alphonsus (1861), 231. Unless I send some one to scourge thy breech.

42

1630.  Hayward, Edw. VI., 74. A lewd boy turned towards him his naked britch.

43

1682.  N. O., Boileau’s Lutrin, II. 147. She dropt backwards upon her breech.

44

1751.  Smollett, Per. Pic., xlvi. (1779), II. 88. Our hero … dismissed him with a kick on the breech.

45

1821.  Byron, Juan, V. lxviii. Trowsers … such as fit an Asiatic breech.

46

  b.  transf. The hinder parts of a beast; also of its skin or fleece: cf. BREECHING 4.

47

1710.  Lond. Gaz., No. 4780/4. The Hair galled off his Buttocks with a Breech Tye.

48

1805.  Luccock, Nat. Wool, 193. The breech of the fleece is large and hairy.

49

1868.  Daily News, 8 Dec. A steer … like the rejected one … about the ‘breeches.’

50

1885.  F. Bowman, Struct. Wool, 219. The coarsest part of the fleece … where the wool grows in large locks with long coarse hairs … is called the ‘breach’ or ‘britch.’

51

  5.  techn. a. Gunnery. ‘The hindermost part of a piece of ordnance’ (Bailey); the part of a cannon behind the bore; the corresponding part in a musket or rifle (cf. BREECH-LOADER). Also attrib.

52

1575.  Gascoigne, Weedes, Wks. (1587), 183. The bravest peece for breech and bore that ever yet was bought.

53

1626.  Capt. Smith, Accid. Yng. Seamen, 32. Her carnooze or base ring at her britch.

54

1664.  Butler, Hud., II. I. 264. Cannons shoot the higher pitches The lower we let down their Breeches.

55

c. 1728.  Swift, Problem, Wks. 1755, IV. I. 301. At the breech it flashes first.

56

1835.  Marryat, Olla Podr., xvii. Muskets which load at the breech.

57

1879.  Cassell’s Techn. Educ., III. 308. The gun always travels with its back part, or breech, towards the horse’s heads.

58

1874.  Boutell, Arms & Arm., xi. 218. The breech end of the gun.

59

  b.  Occas. used of the lower or thicker end of various instruments, tools, etc.; e.g., the thick end or ‘tail’ of the bolt of a lock.

60

1677.  Moxon, Mech. Exerc. (1703), 30. It hath an Hook returning at the Lower End of it, to fall into the Breech of the Bolt.

61

1793.  Sir G. Shuckburgh, in Phil. Trans., LXXXIII. 80. A semicircle divided with its nonius, to every 5′, on the breech plate of the telescope.

62

  c.  Ship-building. ‘The outside angle formed by the knee-timber, the inside of which is the throat’ (Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk.).

63

  † 6.  pl. The roe of a cod-fish. Obs.

64

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, II. xiv. 324. The Spawn, or Frye, is the seed of the fish: of some called Eggs; in a Cod-Fish termed the Breeches.

65

  7.  Comb. chiefly attrib., as breech-belt, -cloth, -clout, -maker, -part, -piece (of a gun), -pocket, -rope, -sight (of a gun), -tie. Also breeches-maker, -pocket.

66

c. 1450.  Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 734. Hoc lumbare, a *brek-belt.

67

c. 1475[?].  Hunt. Hare, 206. His breche-belt all to-brast.

68

1841.  Catlin, N. Amer. Ind. (1844), I. xxix. 232. We found him naked, except his *breech-cloth.

69

c. 1500.  Cocke Lorelles B. (1843), 6. By her crafte a *breche maker.

70

1858.  Greener, Gunnery, 10. They all appear to have been loaded by removing a breech part, or chamber, [etc.].

71

1862.  F. Griffiths, Artil. Man. (ed. 9), 190. The *breech piece is a cylinder … bored, turned, and shrunk upon the end of the barrel.

72

1831.  Carlyle, Sart. Res., III. xi. A Signpost, whereon stood written that such and such a one was *Breeches-Maker to his Majesty.

73

1783.  Cowper, Lett., 26 Jan. Some held their hands behind them … and others had thrust them into their *breeches pockets.

74

  8.  Special comb., as (sense 5 a) breech action, the mechanism at the breech of a gun; breech-block, a moveable steel block by which the breech end of the barrel in certain fire-arms is closed; breech-lever, a lever by which the breech-block of some cannons is screwed in place; breech-pin, breech-plug, a pin or plug closing the breech end of a gun; breech-screw (see quot.); (sense 4) breeches-ball, a ball of composition for cleaning breeches; Breeches Bible, a book-collector’s name for the Geneva Bible of 1560 on account of the rendering of Gen. iii. 7, though this was already in Wyclif (cf. 1 c); breeches-buoy, a life-saving apparatus consisting of a life-buoy with suspended canvass support resembling breeches through which the legs are put; breeches-figure, a person who makes a good figure in breeches; so breeches-part, a part in which men’s clothes are worn by an actress. Also BREECH-GIRDLE, -LOADER.

75

1885.  Daily News, 13 April, 6/3. The *breech-action [of the gun] is so simple and well-balanced that it can be worked by a child.

76

1798.  Jane Austen, Northang. Ab. (1833), II. vii. 141. An expenditure in shoe-strings, hair-powder, and *breeches-ball.

77

1835.  Penny Cycl., IV. 374/2. This [the Geneva] edition is often called the *‘Breeches Bible,’ on account of a rendering given in Genesis iii. 7.

78

1881.  Greener, Gun, 115. The *breech-blocks blew up, in consequence of … imperfect cartridges.

79

1880.  Boy’s Own Paper, III. 52/1. A life-line, furnished with a *‘breeches-buoy’ (resembling a pair of canvas breeches with the legs cut off) was secured to the wreck.

80

1808.  Hurstone, Piccadilly Ambulator, II. 45. The fascinating Mrs. A—k—ns, formerly the much-admired *breeches-figure on the stage.

81

1862.  F. Griffiths, Artil. Man. (ed. 9), 205. *Breech Lever, a weighted arm on the end of the breech screw.

82

1865.  Dublin Univ. Mag., I. 70. We do not profess special admiration of ladies in what are technically … termed *breeches parts.

83

1727.  Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v,. Fowling piece, The *Breech-pin … must be somewhat above the Touch-hole.

84

1885.  Harper’s Mag., March, 632/2. A breech-pin of a gun … was forced into the brain.

85

1881.  Greener, Gun, 17. The *breech-plug was placed in a groove in the wooden frame.

86

1862.  F. Griffiths, Artil. Man. (ed. 9), 205. *Breech-Screw, a cylinder of iron with a screw turned on the outside, working in a female screw in the breech, presses the vent piece into its place when the gun is loaded.

87