breast-high, a., adv., n.
(ˈbrɛsthaɪ)
A. adj. As high as the breast. spec. in Forestry: cf. breast-height s.v. breast n.11.
| 1677 Moxon Mech. Exerc. (1703) 157 Part of the Battlement being Breast high. 1716 Lond. Gaz. No. 5472/2 The Water was Breast high. 1823 J. Badcock Dom. Amus. 207 The rider has a breast-high support ascending from his seat. 1905 Terms used in Forestry & Logging 7 Breasthigh, at or having a height of 4½ feet above the ground. |
B. adv.
1. To the height or depth of the breast.
| 1580 Sidney Arcad. (J.) The river itself gave way unto her, so that she was straight breast-high. 1678 Massacre in Irel. 8 They saw one like a Woman rise out of the River breast-high. 1854 J. Abbott Napoleon (1855) I. xxxv. 556 Some..wading breast high, reached the opposite bank. |
2. Said in Hunting of the scent when it is so strong that the hounds go at a racing pace with their heads erect.
| 1858 Kingsley Ode to N.-E. Wind 30 Hark! the brave North-Easter! Breast-high lies the scent. 1868 R. E. Egerton-Warburton Hunt. Songs lvi, When we fly with a scent breast high, and a galloping fox before us. |
C. n. A tunnel or horizontal entrance into a coal-mine, so low that the miner has to stoop: in Lancash. dial. breast-hee.
| 1850 Bamford Tim Bobbin Introd. 3 in Lanc. Gloss. (E.D.S.) The collier brought his coal to daylight at the mouth of a..breast-hee, generally opening out not unlike a large black sough, on some hill-side. 1857 E. Waugh Lanc. Sk. 44 ibid., At the mouth of a lonely breast-hee on his native moor-side. |