unbreech

English

Etymology

un- +‎ breech

Verb

unbreech (third-person singular simple present unbreeches, present participle unbreeching, simple past and past participle unbreeched)

1. (transitive) To remove the breeches of; to divest or strip of breeches.
   • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     Looking on the lines
     Of my boy's face, my thoughts I did recoil
     Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech'd

2. (military, transitive) To free the breech of (a cannon etc.) from its fastenings or coverings.
   • 1801, Thomas Pennant, A journey from London to the Isle of Wight:

     She was overladen with guns , some were unbreeched , and her port - holes left open

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “unbreech”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• Buechner