breeches buoy
- noun
- /ˈbrɪtʃɪz bɔɪ/
- Archaic
:
bote salvavidas con pantalones
- To ensure everyone's safety, the captain ordered the deployment of the breeches buoy in case of a maritime emergency.
Examples
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During the emergency drill, they practiced lowering the breeches buoy from the vessel to assist in evacuating the crew.
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It'll take more than 3 hours to get them down by breeches buoy.
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Listen, our best chance now is the breeches buoy.
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We lost the breeches buoy.
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We'll set up the breeches buoy on the Peerless Building.
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. . . . .and get a breeches buoy to the Promenade Room.
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The rescue team used the breeches buoy to safely transfer passengers from the sinking ship to the shore.
How Secure
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound literally combines 'breeches' (short trousers) and 'buoy' (a floating device), so a learner who knows both words can infer a buoy fitted with breeches to support a person during rescue. This straightforward noun-noun composition describes the device directly, making the meaning transparent rather than idiomatic.
Etymology
Breeches buoy comes from an old sea rescue tool: a floating buoy fitted with short cloth breeches that acted like small trousers to hold a person. It was sent along a rope to bring people from a ship to shore, so the name now means that 'rescue' device.