|
Breeches ( ) 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. The breeches were normally closed and fastened about the leg, along its open seams at varied lengths, and to the knee, by either buttons or by a draw-string, or by one or more straps and buckle or brooches. Formerly a standard item of Western men's clothing, they had fallen out of use by the early 19th century in favor of pantaloons and then trousers. Modern athletic garments used for English riding and fencing, although called ''breeches'' or ''britches'', differ from breeches in ways discussed in this article. ==Etymology== ''Breeches'' is a double plural known since c. 1205, from Old English ''brēc'', the plural of ''brōc'' "garment for the legs and trunk", from the Proto-Germanic word *''brōk-'', plural *''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 ''brāca'' or ''bracca''; the Romans, who did not generally wear pants, referred to Germanic tribes as ''brācātī'' or ''braccātī'', "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 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. Until around the end of the 19th 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 6 to 8 (the age fell slowly to perhaps 3). Their clothes were rarely as easy to confuse 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"). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「breeches」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|