knee-breeches

noun
/ˌniːˈbɹɪtʃɪz/UK/ˌniˈbɹɪtʃəz/US

Etymology

From knee + breeches.

  1. inherited from *brōks — “crotch, legging, trousers
  2. inherited from *brōk
  3. inherited from brēċ — “underpants
  4. derived from breche
  5. inherited from breches, brechen
  6. formed as knee-breeches — “knee + breeches

Definitions

  1. Breeches reaching down to or just below the knee.

    • This Eben did every day till he grew out of knee-breeches into long corduroy trousers.
    • Practically everyone in the army wore corduroy knee-breeches, but there the uniformity ended.
    • All over British Africa, speakers in their traditional wigs and knee-breeches presided over the rectangular debating chambers of the Westminster model, in which ‘government’ and ‘opposition’ sat facing each other.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for knee-breeches. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA