(v. t.) To strain apart; to sever by fracture; to divide with violence; as, to break a rope or chain; to break a seal; to break an axle; to break rocks or coal; to break a lock.
(v. t.) To lay open as by breaking; to divide; as, to break a package of goods.
(v. t.) To lay open, as a purpose; to disclose, divulge, or communicate.
(v. t.) To infringe or violate, as an obligation, law, or promise.
(v. t.) To interrupt; to destroy the continuity of; to dissolve or terminate; as, to break silence; to break one's sleep; to break one's journey.
(v. t.) To destroy the completeness of; to remove a part from; as, to break a set.
(v. t.) To destroy the arrangement of; to throw into disorder; to pierce; as, the cavalry were not able to break the British squares.
(v. t.) To shatter to pieces; to reduce to fragments.
(v. t.) To exchange for other money or currency of smaller denomination; as, to break a five dollar bill.
(v. t.) To destroy the strength, firmness, or consistency of; as, to break flax.
(v. t.) To weaken or impair, as health, spirit, or mind.
(v. t.) To diminish the force of; to lessen the shock of, as a fall or blow.
(v. t.) To impart, as news or information; to broach; -- with to, and often with a modified word implying some reserve; as, to break the news gently to the widow; to break a purpose cautiously to a friend.
(v. t.) To tame; to reduce to subjection; to make tractable; to discipline; as, to break a horse to the harness or saddle.
(v. t.) To destroy the financial credit of; to make bankrupt; to ruin.
(v. t.) To destroy the official character and standing of; to cashier; to dismiss.
(v. i.) To come apart or divide into two or more pieces, usually with suddenness and violence; to part; to burst asunder.
(v. i.) To open spontaneously, or by pressure from within, as a bubble, a tumor, a seed vessel, a bag.
(v. i.) To burst forth; to make its way; to come to view; to appear; to dawn.
(v. i.) To burst forth violently, as a storm.
(v. i.) To open up; to be scattered; to be dissipated; as, the clouds are breaking.
(v. i.) To become weakened in constitution or faculties; to lose health or strength.
(v. i.) To be crushed, or overwhelmed with sorrow or grief; as, my heart is breaking.
(v. i.) To make an abrupt or sudden change; to change the gait; as, to break into a run or gallop.
(v. i.) To fail in musical quality; as, a singer's voice breaks when it is strained beyond its compass and a tone or note is not completed, but degenerates into an unmusical sound instead. Also, to change in tone, as a boy's voice at puberty.
(v. i.) To fall out; to terminate friendship.
(v. t.) An opening made by fracture or disruption.
(v. t.) An interruption of continuity; change of direction; as, a break in a wall; a break in the deck of a ship.
(v. t.) A projection or recess from the face of a building.
(v. t.) An opening or displacement in the circuit, interrupting the electrical current.
(v. t.) An interruption; a pause; as, a break in friendship; a break in the conversation.
(v. t.) An interruption in continuity in writing or printing, as where there is an omission, an unfilled line, etc.
(v. t.) The first appearing, as of light in the morning; the dawn; as, the break of day; the break of dawn.
(v. t.) A large four-wheeled carriage, having a straight body and calash top, with the driver's seat in front and the footman's behind.
(v. t.) A device for checking motion, or for measuring friction. See Brake, n. 9 & 10.
(n.) See Commutator.
Example Sentences:
(1) Lucy and Ed will combine coverage of hard and breaking news with a commitment to investigative journalism, which their track record so clearly demonstrates”.
(2) They spend about 4.3 minutes of each working hour on a smoking break, the study shows.
(3) The mechanism by which pertussis toxin (PT) breaks the unresponsiveness of delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) to sheep red blood cells (SRBC) was examined in B10 mice.
(4) After absorption of labeled glucose, two pools of trehalose are found in dormant spores, one of which is extractable without breaking the spores, and the other, only after the spores are disintegrated.
(5) The following possible explanations were discussed: a) the tested psychotropic drugs block prostaglandin receptors in the stomach; b) the test substances react with prostaglandin in the nutritive solution; c) the substances stimulate metabolic processes in the stomach wall that break down prostaglandin.
(6) The ability of ligand to stimulate its own synthesis and that of its receptor suggests the presence of an autocrine positive feedback loop, however we were unable to break this loop in the breast cancer cells by antibodies that blocked the interaction of TGF alpha with the EGF receptor.
(7) Neutral sucrose density sedimentation patterns indicate that neutron-induced double strand-breaks sometimes occur in clusters of more than 100 in the same phage and that the effeciency with which double strand-breaks form is about 50 times that of gamma-induced double strand-breaks.
(8) Possible explanations of the clinical gains include 1) psychological encouragement, 2) improvements of mechanical efficiency, 3) restoration of cardiovascular fitness, thus breaking a vicous circle of dyspnoea, inactivity and worsening dyspnoea, 4) strengthening of the body musculature, thus reducing the proportion of anaerobic work, 5) biochemical adaptations reducing glycolysis in the active tissues, and 6) indirect responses to such factors as group support, with advice on smoking habits, breathing patterns and bronchial hygiene.
(9) At high luminances, the temporal, but not spatial, properties of this mechanism break down in a manner which had not been studied.Low-frequency inhibitory processThis process is manifest as a decrease in sensitivity from that of the simple excitatory process.
(10) These experiments represent the first occasion that the sequence specificity of a DNA damaging agent, which causes only double-strand breaks, has been determined to the exact base-pair in intact cells.
(11) The OPL first appears as a thin, discontinuous break in the cytoblast layer that is frequently interrupted by the profiles of migrating neuro- and glioblasts.
(12) Celebrity woodlanders Tax breaks and tree-hugging already draw the wealthy and well-known to buy British forests.
(13) But we need politicians to break out of historical routines.
(14) For Burroughs, who had been publishing ground-breaking books for 20 years without much appreciable financial return, it was association with fame and the music industry, as well as the possible benefits: a wider readership, film hook-ups and more money.
(15) Once you've invested many years in a career, figuring out how to take time out and then return to a role that's comparable to the one you left (or as comparable as you want it to be) requires more than confidence and enthusiasm - employers need to actively acknowledge the benefits of such breaks and be more receptive to those seeking to return”.
(16) A dose-dependent increase in chromatid lesions, i.e., achromatic lesions, chromatid breaks, chromatid deletions and triradial or quandriradial chromosomal exchange fiqures, was found.
(17) From the stress-strain curve the following values were selected: strain, stress, and slope at 80 mmHg equivalent pressure (1 mmHg = 133.3 Pa); maximum stress, strain, and slope; and breaking stress, strain, and slope if the sample broke.
(18) Everyone worked hard, but it is fair to pick out Willian because of his work-rate, quality on the ball, participation in the first goal and quality of the second.” It had been Willian’s fizzed cross, 11 minutes before the break, which Dragovic had nodded inadvertently inside Shovkovskiy’s near post to earn the hosts their initial lead.
(19) The possibility that mammalian DNA topoisomerase II is an intracellular target which mediates drug-induced DNA breaks is supported by the following studies using 4'-(9-acridinylamino)methane-sulfon-m-anisidide (m-AMSA): (a) a single m-AMSA-dependent DNA cleavage activity copurified with calf thymus DNA topoisomerase II activity at all chromatographic steps of the enzyme purification; (b) m-AMSA-induced DNA cleavage by this purified activity resulted in the covalent attachment of protein to the 5'-ends of the DNA via a tyrosyl phosphate bond.
(20) The authorities had said they used water cannon, teargas and smoke grenades to break up the protest.
Breakage
Definition:
(n.) The act of breaking; a break; a breaking; also, articles broken.
(n.) An allowance or compensation for things broken accidentally, as in transportation or use.
Example Sentences:
(1) Cytosolic-to-mitochondrial ratios from maximal initial rates after correction for mitochondrial breakage were increased above controls in diabetic hearts for nucleoside diphosphokinase and aspartate aminotransferase.
(2) Comparison of germline and translocation clones demonstrated that breakage of chromosome 1 had occurred at the border of a tandem repeat of Alu sequences.
(3) These findings of enhanced breakage by FUdR exposure in vitro, nevertheless, may suggest that leukemic cells in general are more susceptible to breakage than normal cells, thereby predisposing the former to secondary chromosome rearrangements.
(4) In contrast to the photosensitivity of ribosome-bound 16S rRNA toward chain breakage, free 16S rRNA seems to be resistant toward photoinduced chain breakage at doses of incident 253.7-nm radiation up to at least 10(21) quanta.
(5) The stamps, which were similar in paper and size to Japanese 10-yen postage stamps, were wrapped around the penis before sleep and the stamp ring was checked for breakage the next morning.
(6) The criteria of failure of pedicular instrumentation or "death" of an implant were defined as 1) screw bending, 2) screw breakage, 3) infection, 4) loosening of implants, 5) any rod or plate hardware problems, or 6) removal of hardware due to a neurologic complication.
(7) The depletion of NAD by CC-1065 was blocked by 3-aminobenzamide, which is consistent with a NAD depletion mechanism involving poly-(ADP-ribose) synthesis in response to a repair-induced DNA strand breakage event.
(8) The action of lysozyme on isolated cell walls released some free reducing groups, indicating limited breakage of the polysaccharide chains of peptidoglycan, and it was concluded that lysozyme modified the peptidoglycan and made it more susceptible to autolysin(s).
(9) Our data support the postulate that chromatin primary structure plays a role in modulating carcinogen damage to chromosomal macromolecules and in DNA strand breakage and repair mechanisms.
(10) Both human and hen lysozymes were equally effective in chain breakage of S. mutans DPR and S. mutans DJR.
(11) We conclude from our analysis that the mechanisms of DNA joining are not locus or location specific, but at least a portion of the mechanisms of chromosomal breakages do show locus specificity.
(12) When copies of this sequence were cloned and analyzed, they were found in all cases to be located at or very near sites of breakage.
(13) Usherwood's account of the breakage of Palmer's diathermy forceps (June 30, p. 773).
(14) Monosomy, translocation, and breakage of chromosome 5 involving band 5q31 and monosomy and partial deletion of chromosome 6 involving band 6q22-q24 were independently observed in primary tumor cells from three of four tumors examined.
(15) The detected shifts lead to disturbance of T-B-cell cooperation, antibody genesis, and breakage of fibrinolysis immune regulation which determine progression of inflammatory changes in the bronchopulmonary system.
(16) Most chromosome rearrangements occurred after breakage in constitutive heterochromatin, and no recurrent breakpoints were found in euchromatin except 11p15.
(17) Our method to break glomeruli is inexpensive and less time-consuming than the breakage with ultrasonic vibration.
(18) The mechanical performance of these sutures was judged by the following parameters: knot breakage force, configuration of secure knots, and knot run down force.
(19) A nondisjunction and chromosome breakage screening system devised by Craymer and modified in our laboratory, involves an X;Y translocation with the short arm of the Y (Ys), marked with the wild type allele of yellow, attached to the distal end of an X (break point 11D) carrying the recessive marker y; and the long arm of the Y chromosome (YL), marked with the dominant locus Bar of Stone (BS), attached to the proximal end of the X.
(20) We have previously shown that blockade of the Na+,K(+)-pump by the cardiac glycoside ouabain produces doxorubicin resistance and decreases topoisomerase II-mediated DNA strand breakage in hamster cells.