breeches
/ˈbɹiː.t͡ʃɪz/
breeches is the plural of breech.
Noun
breeches pl (plural only, attributive breech)
- A garment worn by men, covering the hips and thighs; smallclothes.
- And how then was the Devil drest? / Oh! he was in his Sunday's best: / His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, / And there was a hole where the tail came through.1834 [1799], Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, “The Devil's Thoughts”, in The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge, volume II, London: W. Pickering, page 83
- "In the coach in which I rode, there was a vacant seat till our arrival in Birmingham. Leaving Birmingham I found it filled with a fat Englishman, in drab breeches and gaiter boots, the finest specimen of a thorough John Bull that I had seen—weight about sixteen stone. He wore two top coats, a...1958 October, “Liverpool to London in 1842”, in Railway Magazine, page 682
- Trousers; pantaloons.
- But now there's only old Manning, and young William, and a new-fashioned woman gardener in breeches and such-like.1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Meaning of breech
Noun
breech (countable and uncountable, plural breeches)
- 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
- 'Lat be,' quod he, ‘it shal nat be, so theech!
- 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
- 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.
Synonyms of breeches
Forms of breeches
| alternative Scotland | breeks |
|---|---|
| alternative Appalachia Southern US | britches |
| attributive | breech |
Origin of breeches
From Middle English breches, brechen pl, a variant of Middle English breche, brech, brek (“breeches”), from Old English brēċ (“underpants”), the plural of brōc (“legging, buttocks”), from Proto-West Germanic *brōk, from Proto-Germanic *brōks (“crotch, legging, trousers”). Akin to West Frisian broek (“leggings, over-trousers”), Dutch broek (“pair of trousers, underpants, long-johns”), obsolete German Bruch (“pair of hose, leggings, pants trousers”), Old Norse brók (“breeches”) (whence Danish brog); compare Latin brācae ( > French braies, Spanish bragas) which is immediately of Celtic origin, yet ultimately borrowed from the same Proto-Germanic source above. Compare brail.
Words formed from breeches
Phrases with breeches
Words that rhyme with breeches
Questions about breeches
- What does breeches mean?
- Breeches means a garment worn by men, covering the hips and thighs; smallclothes.
- What is breeches the plural of?
- Breeches is the plural of breech.
- What part of speech is breeches?
- Breeches is a noun.
- How do you pronounce breeches?
- Breeches is pronounced /ˈbɹiː.t͡ʃɪz/.
Words near breeches in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: breeches (page history and authors); breech (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: en-us-breeches.ogg.
Cite this entry: “breeches.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/breeches. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.