| / English Dictionary |
BREECHES
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(used in the plural) trousers ending above the knee
Synonyms:
breeches; knee breeches; knee pants; knickerbockers; knickers
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("breeches" is a kind of...):
pair of trousers; pant; trousers ((usually in the plural) a garment extending from the waist to the knee or ankle, covering each leg separately)
Meronyms (parts of "breeches"):
codpiece ((15th-16th century) a flap for the crotch of men's tight-fitting breeches)
Domain usage:
plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "breeches"):
britches ((used in the plural) informal term for breeches)
buckskins ((used in the plural) breeches made of buckskin)
plus fours (men's baggy knickers hanging below the knees; formerly worn for sports (especially golf))
trunk hose (puffed breeches of the 16th and 17th centuries usually worn over hose)
Context examples:
He coughed to that extent, and his breath eluded all his attempts to recover it with that obstinacy, that I fully expected to see his head go down behind the counter, and his little black breeches, with the rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees, come quivering up in a last ineffectual struggle.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
But, as princes seldom get their meat hot, my legs were not scalded, only my stockings and breeches in a sad condition.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
The famous Master of the Ring was clad in honour of the occasion in a most resplendent scarlet coat worked in gold at the buttonholes, a white stock, a looped hat with a broad black band, buff knee-breeches, white silk stockings, and paste buckles—a costume which did justice to his magnificent figure, and especially to those famous balustrade calves which had helped him to be the finest runner and jumper as well as the most formidable pugilist in England.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I looked out for Mr. Barkis, but he was not there; and instead of him a fat, short-winded, merry-looking, little old man in black, with rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches, black stockings, and a broad-brimmed hat, came puffing up to the coach window, and said: Master Copperfield?
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Here I sat for some time, five hundred yards from the ground, expecting every moment to be blown down by the wind, or to fall by my own giddiness, and come tumbling over and over from the ridge to the eaves; but an honest lad, one of my nurse’s footmen, climbed up, and putting me into his breeches pocket, brought me down safe.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for help to a waiter of more authority—a stout, potential old man, with a double chin, in black breeches and stockings, who came out of a place like a churchwarden's pew, at the end of the coffee-room, where he kept company with a cash-box, a Directory, a Law-list, and other books and papers.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
In this exercise I once met an accident, which had like to have cost me my life; for, one of the pages having put my boat into the trough, the governess who attended Glumdalclitch very officiously lifted me up, to place me in the boat: but I happened to slip through her fingers, and should infallibly have fallen down forty feet upon the floor, if, by the luckiest chance in the world, I had not been stopped by a corking-pin that stuck in the good gentlewoman’s stomacher; the head of the pin passing between my shirt and the waistband of my breeches, and thus I was held by the middle in the air, till Glumdalclitch ran to my relief.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
His majesty gave orders, upon pain of death, that every soldier in his march should observe the strictest decency with regard to my person; which however could not prevent some of the younger officers from turning up their eyes as they passed under me: and, to confess the truth, my breeches were at that time in so ill a condition, that they afforded some opportunities for laughter and admiration.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
In the large pocket, on the right side of his middle cover (so I translate the word ranfulo, by which they meant my breeches,) we saw a hollow pillar of iron, about the length of a man, fastened to a strong piece of timber larger than the pillar; and upon one side of the pillar, were huge pieces of iron sticking out, cut into strange figures, which we know not what to make of.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
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