breeching

Noun

breeching (countable and uncountable, plural breechings)

1. (historical) The ceremony of dressing a boy in trousers for the first time.
   • When boys left off skirts at about six or seven to put on breeches this was an occasion of minor ceremony which marked the next stage of growing up. By the 18th century breeching was taking place earlier, when a boy was three or four.1996, Anne Buck, Clothes and the Child, R. Bean, →ISBN, page 81
2. A conduit through which exhaust gases are conducted to a chimney.
3. A rope used to secure a cannon.
   • The great guns ranged along the deck — each bound fast by its new breechings — with their linstocks and sponges and ladles and rammers, made no idle show of warlike strength.1923, Charles Boardman Hawes, The Dark Frigate, Chapter 6
4. A component of horse harness or tack, enabling the horse to hold back a vehicle.
   • Beside this, he has to learn to wear a collar, a crupper, and a breeching, and to stand still whilst they are put on; then to have a cart or a chaise fixed behind him, so that he cannot walk or trot without dragging it after him: and he must go fast or slow, just as his driver wishes.[1877], Anna Sewell, “My Breaking In”, in Black Beauty: […], London: Jarrold and Sons, […], →OCLC, part I, pages 16–17
5. (slang) A beating or flogging.