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''breech'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''breech'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260313192153-00-⌔

breech - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

breech (countable and uncountable, plural breeches)

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  • (historical, now only in the plural or attributive) A garment whose purpose is to cover or clothe the buttocks. [from 11th c.]
    • late 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner’s Tale, The Canterbury Tales:
      • ✤ ‘Lat be,’ quod he, ‘it shal nat be, so theech!
        Thou woldest make me kisse thyn old breech,
        And swere it were a relik of a seint,
        Thogh it were with thy fundement depeint!’
    • ✤ The stallion lipped Alanna’s breech pockets. “He’s spoiled rotten.” Fishing a lump of sugar out, she fed it to him.1
    • ✤ 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.2
    • ✤ He reached into his breech pockets. They were huge, but well-tailored and disguised properly within the folds of the pants.3
  • (now rare) The buttocks or backside. [from 16th c.]
    • ✤ 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 […]4
    • ✤ 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.5
    • ✤ “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.6
  • (firearms) The part of a cannon or other firearm behind the chamber. [from 16th c.]
    • ✤ Coordinate term: muzzle
  • (nautical) The external angle of knee timber, the inside of which is called the throat.
  • (obstetrics) A breech birth.

Adverb

breech (not comparable)

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

Adjective

breech (not comparable)

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

Verb

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

  • (dated, transitive) To dress in breeches. (especially) To dress a boy in breeches or trousers for the first time (the breeching ceremony).
    • ✤ […] it occurred before I was breeched, and I was breeched at three years and a quarter old;7
    • ✤ A great man […] anxious to know whether the blacksmith’s youngest boy was breeched.8
  • (dated, transitive) To beat or spank on the buttocks.
  • (transitive) To fit or furnish with a breech.
    • ✤ to breech a gun
  • (transitive) To fasten with breeching.
  • (poetic, transitive, obsolete) To cover as if with breeches.
    • ✤ Their daggers unmannerly breeched with gore.9

Etymology

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.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈbɹiːt͡ʃ/, [ˈbɹʷɪi̯t͡ʃ]
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -iːtʃ
  • Hyphenation: breech
  • Homophone: breach

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1992, Tamora Pierce, Wild Magic, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, →ISBN, page 57: ↩

  2. 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: ↩

  3. 2015, David Nabhan, The Pilots of Borealis, London: Gollancz, published 2020, →ISBN: ↩

  4. 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 157: ↩

  5. 1736, Alexander Pope, Bounce to Fop: ↩

  6. 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter VIII, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book III: ↩

  7. 1748-1832, Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 10: ↩

  8. 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter X, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC: ↩

  9. 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]: ↩

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