Breeches

Breeches (ˈbrɪtʃɪz,_ˈbriː- ) are an article of clothing covering the body from the waist down, with separate coverings for each leg, usually stopping just below the knee, though in some cases reaching to the ankles. Formerly a standard item of Western men's clothing, they had fallen out of use by the mid-19th century in favour of trousers. Modern athletic garments used for English riding and fencing, although called breeches or britches, differ from breeches. Breeches is a double plural known since 1205, from Old English brēc, the plural of brōc "garment for the legs and trunk", from the Indo-European root "break", here apparently used in the sense "divide", "separate", as in Scottish Gaelic briogais ("trousers"), in Breton bragoù ("pants"), in Irish bríste ("trousers") and brycan or brogau in Welsh. Cognate with the Proto-Germanic word *brōk-, plural *brōkiz, itself most likely from the Proto-Indo-European root; whence also the Old Norse word brók, which shows up in the epithet of the Viking king Ragnar Loðbrók, Ragnar "Hairy-breeches". Like other words for similar garments (e.g., pants, knickers, and shorts) the word breeches has been applied to both outer garments and undergarments. Breeches uses a plural form to reflect it has two legs; the word has no singular form (it is a plurale tantum). This construction is common in English and Italian (brache, plural of the never-used braca), but is no longer common in some other languages in which it was once common; e.g., the parallel modern broek. At first breeches indicated a cloth worn as underwear by both men and women. Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, uses the word breech as a synonym or perhaps a euphemism for anus in his letters. In the latter 16th century, breeches began to replace hose (while the German Hosen, also a plural, ousted Bruch) as the general English term for men's lower outer garments, a usage that remained standard until knee-length breeches were replaced for everyday wear by long pantaloons or trousers.