Breeches - Etymology

Etymology

Breeches is a double plural known since c. 1205, from Old English (and before Old French) brēc, the plural of brōc "garment for the legs and trunk", from the Proto-Germanic word *brōkiz, whence also the Old Norse word brók, which shows up in the epithet of the Viking king Ragnar Loðbrók, Ragnar "Hairy-breeches". The Proto-Germanic word also gave rise, via a Celtic language, to the Latin word bracca; the Romans, who did not generally wear pants, referred to Germanic tribes as braccati, "wearers of breeches" (or rather, of fabric wrapped around the legs.)

Like other words for similar garments (e.g., pants, knickers, and shorts) the word breeches has been applied to both outer garments and underwear. 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, but is no longer common in some other languages in which it was once common; e.g., the parallel modern Dutch broek.

At first breeches indicated a cloth worn as underwear by both men and women.

In the latter sixteenth 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.

Until around the end of the nineteenth century (but later in some places), small boys wore special forms of dresses until they were "breeched", or given the adult male styles of clothes, at about the age of six to eight (the age fell slowly to perhaps three). Their clothes were not usually confusable with those of little girls, as the head-covering and hair, chest and collar, and other features were differentiated from female styles.

During the French Revolution breeches (culottes in French) were seen as a symbol of the nobility. Lower-class revolutionaries became known as sansculottes ("without breeches").