Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- A bifurcated garment worn by men, covering the body from the waist to the knees, or, in some cases, only to mid-thigh.
- Less properly, trousers or pantaloons.
- Synonyms See trousers.
Wiktionary
- n. Plural form of breech.
- n. A garment worn by men, covering the hips and thighs; smallclothes.
- n. Trousers; pantaloons; britches.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A garment worn by men, covering the hips and thighs; smallclothes.
- n. Trousers; pantaloons.
WordNet 3.0
- n. trousers ending above the knee
Examples
“And bagged in breeches, clinging round his side, —”
“My favourite episode consisted of Bill Odie dressed in breeches and a flat cap wielding a black pudding ... well just hitting people with the black pudding in a demonstration of the ancient martial art of 'ecky thumph'.”
“Walking over it immediately conjures up images of Greg Wise in breeches; enough to keep me smiling for the rest of the day.”
“He was dressed for riding, with buff coat and buckskin breeches, and shining top boots.”
“Khaki was the rule, the women mostly in breeches and long coats, with high-laced shoes reaching to the knee and soft felt hats, the men in riding-clothes, with sombreros and brilliant bandannas knotted about their throats.”
Through Glacier Park: Seeing America First with Howard Eaton
“He was hatless; his Crimean shirt was torn into ribbons; his moleskin breeches were covered with blood and dirt; the strap belt, with its sheath-knife and various pouches, was gone, and this, judging from the state of his legs and feet, had been forcibly removed.”
“The servants, powdered and in short breeches as usual, served us in their customary solemnity; but they must have wondered why we preferred to sit on the gravel, with a draught of cold air on our backs, when we might have been comfortably seated in a big and airy room with a carpet under our feet.”
In the Courts of Memory, 1858 1875; from Contemporary Letters
“She had walked up with a Mr. Crowe, from Peterborough, a young, brisk-looking farmer, in breeches and top-boots, just out from the old country, who, naturally enough, thought he would like to roost among the woods.”
“There are things we do and know perfectly well in Vanity Fair, though we never speak of them: as the Ahrimanians worship the devil, but don't mention him: and a polite public will no more bear to read an authentic description of vice than a truly refined English or American female will permit the word breeches to be pronounced in her chaste hearing.”
“a polite public will no more bear to read an authentic description of vice than a truly refined English or American female will permit the word breeches to be pronounced in her chaste hearing.”
chained_bear Captured at Yorktown: 126 "woolen breeches," another set of 241 breeches, and the next day, taken from the British "Deputy-Quarter-Master" and "adjudged to be forfeited," 25 "woolen breeches." Oct 29, 2007