breech

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English brech,^[2][3] inherited from Old English brēc (“breeches”), the plural of brōc (“leg covering”).^{[3][4][5][6][7]} The Old English plural was taken as a singular, and the double plural breeches was formed from it.^[8][7][9] It comes from Proto-Germanic *brōks, plural *brōkiz,^[10][1] a garment for the loins and thighs,^[4] and is cognate with Old Frisian brōk, Middle Dutch broec, Dutch broek, Old High German bruoh, Middle High German bruoch, German Bruch and Old Norse brók.^[4][5][11] Its further origin is uncertain.^[5][11] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster connect it with the root of break, Old English brecan,^[10][12] and Etymonline with Proto-Indo-European *bhreg- (“to break”), the notion being a forked or split garment.^[9] The word is often said to be taken from Latin brāca, or from its Gaulish source, the origin of brogue; the OED rejects this, since the Germanic word has all the marks of a native one, and cites Whitley Stokes for the view that the Celtic word is a cognate from the same root.^[4] Klein takes the Latin word as a Gaulish borrowing from Germanic,^[11] and Weekley left it open whether the group was first Germanic or Celtic.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A garment covering the loins and thighs: Old English brēc, in the Benedictine Rule, glossing Latin femoralia.^[4][13] In Middle English brech was an undergarment, underpants or drawers, as in Layamon's Brut and the Ancrene Wisse;^[2] Barnhart dates the plural breches to before 1200, in Layamon.^[10]

Semantic evolution

As the name of the garment the singular lasted until 1642;^[4] the plural breeches or a pair of breeches took its place, perhaps not before the 15th century.^[4][9] Bosworth–Toller already records the Old English word for the buttocks themselves,^[13] but the OED doubts that sense before the 16th century and first finds it in Robert Greene, before 1592;^[4] the Oxford Dictionary of English dates it to the mid 16th century.^[8] Johnson (1755) defined the word as "the lower part of the body; the back part".^[14] From the rump the word passed to the hind part of other things, above all the part of a gun behind the bore, from 1575 in Gascoigne,^[4][9][8] which Weekley compares with French culasse, from cul, the backside.^[7] In obstetrics a breech was the buttocks presenting first at birth from 1673,^[4] and the word became an adverb, born breech, by 1985.^[12] The phrase to wear the breech, later the breeches, of a wife who rules her husband, dates from 1568.^[4][7] The verb meant to put a boy into breeches from 1468,^[4][9] to flog on the buttocks from 1573 to 1821,^[4][7] and in the navy to secure a cannon with a breeching from 1757.^[4][9] In American underworld slang a breech was a trouser pocket (1903).^[15] In Northumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire and Wiltshire britch was still used for trousers in the singular.^[16]

Timeline

• Old English – brēc, a garment for the loins and thighs.^[4][13]
• c. 1230 – Middle English brech, underpants or drawers, in the Ancrene Wisse.^[2]
• 1468 – verb, to clothe in breeches.^[4][9]
• 1568 – to wear the breech, of a woman, to be the dominant partner.^[4]
• 1573 – verb, to whip on the buttocks (obsolete by 1821).^[4]
• 1575 – the part of a gun behind the bore.^[4][9]
• before 1592 – the buttocks.^[4]
• 1673 – in obstetrics, the buttocks presenting first at birth.^[4]
• 1678 – the thick or blunt end of a tool.^[4]
• 1710 – the hindquarters of an animal, or of its skin or fleece.^[4]
• 1757 – verb, to secure a cannon with a breeching.^[4][9]
• 1985 – adverb, of a birth, with the buttocks or feet first.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. The part of a firearm or cannon behind the barrel or bore.^[17][12][4]
2. The buttocks; the rump.^[17][4][12]
3. (obstetrics) A breech delivery or breech presentation, in which the buttocks or feet come first.^[17][4]
4. The lower or hinder part of something, such as the part of a pulley block to which the rope is fastened.^[17][4]
5. The hindquarters of an animal, or the part of a fleece taken from them.^[4]
6. (obsolete, Old English–1642) A garment covering the loins and thighs; breeches.^[4][2]

Verb

1. (archaic) To put a boy into breeches for the first time.^[12][4][18]
2. To fit a gun with a breech, or to secure a cannon with a breeching.^[9][4]
3. (archaic) To whip on the buttocks.^[12][4]

Adverb

1. (medicine) In a breech position, with the buttocks or feet first: Her second child was delivered breech.^[12][1]

Word family

• breechcloth
• breechclout
• breechless
• breechblock
• breechloading
• breechloader
• bear's breech
• breech delivery

Related words

• breeches
• britches
• brogue
• break
• breach

Usage notes

Dictionary.com lists breech with breach among words that are easily confused.^[6] The breeches-wearing contest of husband and wife has, according to Weekley, parallels in other languages.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e f g Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press