Word.ws English Dictionary

breech

/ˈbɹiːt͡ʃ/

breech noun: a garment whose purpose is to cover or clothe the buttocks.

breech: a garment whose purpose is to cover or clothe the buttocks
Image: David Ring, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

breech (countable and uncountable, plural breeches)

  1. (attributive, historical, in plural) 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,late 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner's Tale, The Canterbury Tales
    • The stallion lipped Alanna’s breech pockets. “He’s spoiled rotten.” Fishing a lump of sugar out, she fed it to him.1992, Tamora Pierce, Wild Magic, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, →ISBN, page 57
  2. (archaic) 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 […]1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 157
    • 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.1736, Alexander Pope, Bounce to Fop
  3. The part of a cannon or other firearm behind the chamber.
  4. The external angle of knee timber, the inside of which is called the throat.
  5. A breech birth.

Adverb

breech (not comparable)

  1. With the hips coming out before the head.

Adjective

breech (not comparable)

  1. Born, or having been born, breech.

Verb

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).
    • […] it occurred before I was breeched, and I was breeched at three years and a quarter old;1748-1832, Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 10
    • A great man […] anxious to know whether the blacksmith's youngest boy was breeched.1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter X, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans...
  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. (obsolete, poetic, transitive) To cover as if with breeches.
    • Their daggers unmannerly breeched with gore.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...

breech meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Telugu

breech in Hindi

breech
पेंदा pendā

breech in Tamil

குண்டி, புட்டம், குழலாசனம், துப்பாக்கிக் குழலின் பின் பகுதி, முனை

breech in Urdu

دھڑ, پشت

breech in Telugu

the breech, rump, anus
ముడ్డి muḍḍi
More languagesFewer languages
breech in Tagalog
suhi

Examples of breech in a sentence

  • External cephalic version is a process by which a breech baby can sometimes be turned from buttocks or foot first to head first.
  • You look cute in breeches, too, but I want Drew to see you in this outfit.
  • I'm not wearing breeches beneath my habit, though without a doubt they'd be warmer than my stockings.

All 33 example sentences with breech

Forms of breech

Noun
pluralbreeches
Verb
third-person singular presentbreeches
present participlebreeching
past participlebreeched
pastbreeched

Plural of breech: breeches

Origin of 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.

Words formed from breech

Phrases with breech

Words that rhyme with breech

17 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about breech

What does breech mean?
Breech means a garment whose purpose is to cover or clothe the buttocks.
What is breech in Hindi?
Breech in Hindi is पेंदा (pendā). See Breech meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is breech?
Breech can be a noun, an adverb, an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce breech?
Breech is pronounced /ˈbɹiːt͡ʃ/.
What is the plural of breech?
The plural of breech is breeches.

Words near breech in the dictionary

  1. bredth
  2. Bredwardine
  3. bree
  4. Breece
  5. Breeces
  6. breech
  7. breech birth
  8. breech births
  9. Breech Candy
  10. breech deliveries
  11. breech delivery

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: breech (page history and authors); पेंदा (Hindi) (page history and authors); breech (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); breech (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ముడ్డి (Telugu) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-breech.wav.

Cite this entry: “breech.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/breech. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.