Breeched

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Having been clothed in trousers, born with buttocks or feet presenting, or supplied with the rear portion of a gun
2. Being outfitted in pants, experiencing a non-headfirst delivery, or equipped with the back section of a weapon
3. Wearing trousers as an article of clothing ; born with the posterior or feet emerging first during birth ; having the back section attached to a gun

Etymology: "Breeched" is the past form of "breech," and the three senses listed here all grow from one old word for clothing. Old English "brēċ" referred to a garment covering the loins and thighs, the ancestor of what we would now call trousers or breeches. That root comes from Proto-Germanic "*brōks," meaning clothing for the loins and thighs, and it survives in Dutch "broek," meaning trousers, and Swedish "brok," meaning trousers or breeches. Being "breeched" in the clothing sense simply meant having been given breeches, which in earlier centuries was a significant marker of a boy's passage into manhood. The other two senses branch off from the same garment word in a more physical way. A baby born with buttocks or feet first is said to be in a breech presentation, the rear end of the body being described by the same term that once named the clothing covering it. A gun's breech is its rear portion, the end where the charge is loaded, and the metaphor is a similar bodily-to-mechanical leap.

Synonyms: trousered, clothed

Antonyms: naked, bare