Which should you use, breach or breech? As a verb, breach means to break through or
to break a law. Breech is not a verb.
| Incorrect: |
The enemy easily breeched our
defences. |
| Correct: |
The enemy easily breached our
defences. |
The noun breach may mean a failure to do something that you have promised or a situation in which someone does something that goes against the accepted rules of social behaviour. Breeches is a plural noun meaning old-fashioned trousers that end at the knee.
| Incorrect: |
She would never forgive his breech of loyalty.
|
| Correct: |
She would never forgive his breach of loyalty.
|
The adjective breech is used before the noun birth or delivery to mean a birth in which the baby's head does not come out first.
| Incorrect: |
The lawsuit alleged that doctors at the hospital botched a breach birth.
|
| Correct: |
The lawsuit alleged that doctors at the hospital botched a breech birth.
|
