breath and britches

English

Noun

breath and britches (uncountable)

(Southern US, figurative) The minimal qualities that make one a person (especially a man), either
1. physically (implying extreme thinness) or,
  - 1990, Lee K. Abbott, “Why I Live in Hanoi”, in Dreams of Distant Lives‎^[1], New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, page 109:
    […] San Antonio Mexicans named Cisco and Pancho, both in black-market sombreros. They were skinny—all breath and britches—and short-timers, soon to go home.
2. in terms of character, accomplishments, etc.
  - 1957, Frank Yerby, chapter 22, in Fairoaks‎^[2], New York: Pocket Books, published 1963, page 295:
    “ […] I don’t know a blessed thing but planting. What does she expect me to do? Hire out as an overseer?”
    I would, Guy thought clearly, coldly; before I’d accept the slightest favor from anybody. But you haven’t got that, have you, Kil? Reckon you never were anything more than breath and britches.
  - 1966, Margaret Walker, Jubilee‎^[3], New York: Houghton Mifflin, published 2016, Part I, Chapter 3, p. 54:
    Man ain’t nothing but trouble, just breath and britches and trouble. Don’t let him feel all over you, now, don’t let a no-good man touch you, else he’ll big you up sho-nuff.
  - 1981, John Edgar Wideman, “The Songs of Reba Love Jackson”, in Damballah‎^[4], New York: Houghton Mifflin, published 1998, page 122:
    We’s all God’s creatures and it ain’t in the Bible to sit in the back of no buses or bow down to any man what ain’t nothing but breath and britches.
(Southern US, figurative) A man of no substance.
- 1937, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 2, in Their Eyes Were Watching God‎^[5], University of Illinois Press, published 1978, page 27:
  “ […] Ah don’t want no trashy nigger, no breath-and-britches, lak Johnny Taylor usin’ yo’ body to wipe his foots on.”