Step into the breach. Take the place of someone who is suddenly unable to do a job or task. In military terms a breach is a gap in fortifications made by enemy guns or explosives. In this context, to stand in the breach is to bear the brunt of an attack when other defences or expedients have failed. Replace someone who is suddenly unable to do a job or task. 'I can't think of anyone who could step into the breach should I become ill'.
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breach of decorum
breach of etiquette
breach of promise
step into the breach
step into the breach
step into the breach
take the place of someone who is suddenly unable to do a job or task.step into the ˈbreach
do somebody’s job or work when they are suddenly or unexpectedly unable to do it: The cook at the hotel fell ill, so the manager’s wife stepped into the breach.Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content.
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A reader experienced a moment of doubt when he came across an online essay ending with this line:
So, no cry of victory yet. Rather, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends!”
I forget. Is it supposed to be breach, as in the gap in a broken wall, or breech, as in the part of the gun where you load the projectile, unless the gun is loaded down the muzzle, of course.
I guess King Harry’s famous speech isn’t as famous as it used to be.
To the reader who knows his Henry V, the second line answers the question:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
Act Three begins with Henry and his troops surging onto the stage. The men, carrying scaling ladders, are exhausted. Henry is encouraging them to make another assault on the walls of Harfleur. The “breach” is a gap in the city wall. Where Shakespeare says “unto,” we now say “into.”
The two words, breach and breech, both derive from a word meaning “break.”
The English word breeches meaning “trousers” derives from the plural of broc, “garment for the legs and trunk.” From this plural comes the word breech meaning “the part of the body covered by breeches.”
By extension the word came to be used in other contexts. A breech birth for example, is one in which the child emerges rear-end first. (Or in some manner other than headfirst.)
Valentino rossi the game review. In gunnery the breech is
1. the hindermost part of a piece of ordnance.
2. the part of a cannon behind the bore
3. the corresponding part in a musket or rifle
Breech-loading cannon were used during the Hundred Years War. One of Joan of Arc’s military skills was the ability to judge their range. The breech-loading rifle came along in the nineteenth century.
You can read King Henry’s entire rousing speech here.
Sad P.S.
As an afterthought I did a search to see if anyone was writing “into the breech.” Oh dear. It’s all over the place. There’s even a band that calls itself that. As the professor in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe asks himself frequently, “What do they teach in schools these days?
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