breeches

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   short trousers fastened at or just below the knee, historically worn by men and now especially for riding

   The rider wore beige breeches with tall black boots.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Breeches developed from breech, a singular word used from Anglo-Saxon times for a garment covering the groin and thighs. Breech also meant the buttocks, preserved in breech birth, and its broader association with the back or end produced the late 16th-century term for the rear of a gun barrel. The clothing word later became fixed in the plural.

The lexicalized plural of Middle English breche or breches, from Old English brec, the plural of broc ("leg covering; garment for the loins"), from Proto-Germanic *broks. Cognates include Dutch broek and Old Norse brok. Although historically a plural of breech, modern breeches is the independent plural clothing headword; singular a breech is not used for one trouser leg.

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
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