breech
adverb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L187041 on Wikidata ↗noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L317368 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈbɹiːt͡ʃ/ / [ˈbɹʷɪi̯t͡ʃ]
adj
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.
- Born, or having been born, breech.
adv
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.
- With the hips coming out before the head.
noun
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.
- A garment whose purpose is to cover or clothe the buttocks.
“'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,”
“The stallion lipped Alanna’s breech pockets. “He’s spoiled rotten.” Fishing a lump of sugar out, she fed it to him.”
- The buttocks or backside.
“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 […]”
“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.”
- The part of a cannon or other firearm behind the chamber.
- The external angle of knee timber, the inside of which is called the throat.
- A breech birth.
verb
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.
- 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;”
“A great man […] anxious to know whether the blacksmith's youngest boy was breeched.”
- To beat or spank on the buttocks.
- To fit or furnish with a breech.
“to breech a gun”
- To fasten with breeching.
- To cover as if with breeches.
“Their daggers unmannerly breeched with gore.”