breasted

1. 1
   adjectivein compounds

   Having a breast or outer covering of a specified kind.

   The tailor recommended a double-breasted blazer for the formal event.

   Birdwatchers spotted a yellow-breasted warbler hiding in the reeds.

   Note

   Here the word lives only at the end of compounds, and the first element does the describing. It has two main uses. Tailoring uses it for the front of a coat, as in double-breasted and single-breasted. Bird and poultry names use it for plumage. Charles Louis Flint's The American Farmer (1884) sorts game fowl into the Black-breasted Red, the Brown-breasted Reds and fawn-breasted partridge hens. Before a noun, the compound is hyphenated.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of breast.

   The lead runner breasted the tape a step ahead of her rival.

   The climbers breasted the final ridge as the sun rose.

   Note

   A regular verb, so one form serves as both past tense and participle: she breasted the tape; the ridge had been breasted. Every sense of the verb takes an object, so the participle moves easily into the passive. One sense pulls against the adjective. Breast can also mean "to debreast," so a bird that has been breasted has lost its breast, while the adjective describes one that has one.

3. 3
   adjective

   Having a breast, or breasts.

   The Neolithic figurine is heavily breasted, emphasizing fertility.

   The temple relief showed a breasted deity holding a sheaf of grain.

   Note

   A noun turned into an adjective with -ed, on the same pattern as bearded or winged: the ending means "furnished with." It is not compared, so there is no "more breasted" or "most breasted." A word like heavily describes the build instead. Thomas A. Easton's Stones of Memory (2000) sets it bare beside sleekened, letting it stand on its own as a word for the body.

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