Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The strap of a harness that passes behind a draft animal's haunches.
- n. The short wool or hair on the rump and hind legs of a sheep, goat, or dog.
- n. The parts of a gun that make up the breech.
- n. A rope formerly used to secure the breech of a cannon to the side of a ship to control the recoil.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A whipping on the breech.
- n. Hard, clotted wool on the buttocks of a sheep.
- n. That part of a horse's harness which passes round its breech, and which enables it to back the vehicle to which it is harnessed. The breeching is connected by straps to the saddle and shafts. Also called breech-band. See cut under harness.
- n. In naval gun., a strong rope passed through a hole in the cascabel of a gun and fastened to bolts in the ship's side, to check the recoil of the gun when it is fired.
- n. A bifurcated smoke-pipe of a furnace.
Wiktionary
- n. The ceremony of dressing a boy in trousers for the first time.
- n. A conduit through which exhaust gases are conducted to a chimney.
- n. nautical A rope used to secure a cannon.
- n. equestrian A component of horse harness or tack, enabling the horse to hold back a vehicle.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A whipping on the breech, or the act of whipping on the breech.
- n. That part of a harness which passes round the breech of a horse, enabling him to hold back a vehicle.
- n. (Naut.) A strong rope rove through the cascabel of a cannon and secured to ringbolts in the ship's side, to limit the recoil of the gun when it is discharged.
- n. The sheet iron casing at the end of boilers to convey the smoke from the flues to the smokestack.
Examples
“They were trained by handspikes with the aid of side-tackle and their recoil was limited by a stout rope, called the breeching, the ends of which were secured to the sides of the ship.”
“Aboard ship, where recoil space was limited, the "kick" of the gun was checked by a heavy rope called a breeching, shackled to the side of the vessel”
Artillery Through the Ages A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America
“The recoil of the gun on firing, was often very violent, but it was limited by the stout rope called the breeching, which ran round the base of the gun, from each side of the port-hole, and kept it from running back more than its own length.”
On the Spanish Main Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien.
“To check the recoil, a heavy rope or "breeching" was run from the breech of the gun to the side of the ship.”
“We can let others take the lead in breeching the frontier.”
The Huffington Post: Seth Shostak: American Space Research: An Also-Ran?
“Nothing prepares you for the breeching of the waters, the spout fluming into air, the lusty cry of new life.”
“Yet it's hard to argue when one stands in its presence: The car's obsidian aluminum body Mr. Lauren changed the color from blue seems to leap over itself in a cavort of harmonies and symmetries, the fenders and arched roofline like black dolphins breeching and leaping.”
“But what gives the issue an antitrust twist is that Google is in the business of reselling aggregated data, so if it is breeching privacy systematically in illegal or unethical ways that help it resell the rest of its products through better targeting of search results and/or advertising, those privacy breeches become an anti-competitive advantage for Google as well.”
The Huffington Post: Nathan Newman: The Case for Antitrust Action Against Google
“I mean HUMONGOUS, carp, breeching the water like freshwater Whales!”
“Besides being a very good breeching tool, a tomahawk, especially one that is pointy or sharp at both ends, is an awesome weapon.”
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