Breeks noun trousers, underpants
‘He smiled at me then, with a sudden heart-stopping brilliance, and handed me his shed breeks.’ (Drums of Autumn)
Breeks have a long and varied history in Scots language and culture. In 2006, an article in the Herald identified a modern conundrum for the fashion-conscious: ‘what type of mini-breeks to buy to suit your figure and your wardrobe?’ But not all Scots are so fussy. In his poem Scotch Drink (1786), Robert Burns made the following entreaty to Fortune: ‘if thou’ll but gie me still Hale breeks, a scone, an’ whisky gill, An’ rowth o’ rhyme to rave at will, Tak a’ the rest’.
The word derives from a northern Middle English variant of Old English brec and examples are found in Scottish sources from the fourteenth century onwards, though the singular form of the word was sometimes used instead of the plural. An early example from the late fourteenth-century can be found in John Barbour’s Legends of the Saints, describing someone who is: ‘Al nakit bot [without] sark & breke’.
Breeks also has figurative meanings. The word sometimes refers to a forked stick, typically one used for a catapult (the fork resembling the shape of trousers.) There’s an example of the phrase ‘a pair o’ breeks’ from curling, used to describe a situation where the played stones lie in a V-formation at the tee.
Generally, though, in modern Scots, it means underpants or trousers, as in: ‘Phaethon wis aw mooth an nae breeks, a bletherskite wi a big conceit o himsel.’ (James Roberston, Phaethon's Hurl in the Sky-The Hoose o Haivers 2002)
And it combines with various other words in phrases, such as fearty breeks: ‘“Just you stay put, feardie breeks,”’ Joyce told him. ‘“Women an’ children first, remember?”’ (Peter Kerr Thistle Soup 2002). Thorn in the breeks means a pain in the backside: ‘Och, he was a thorn in the breeks to a lot of folk was The Clincher...’ (Anna Blair Tea at Miss Cranston’s, 1985).
Finally, Canongate breeks is a reference to venereal disease (referencing a time when the Canongate in Edinburgh was a bit, well, disreputable). Here’s an example from William Mitchel’s Wonderful Sermon to Students (1734): ‘It is commonly called the Clap, or Glengore, and now under the Name of the Canongate breeks.’