(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.
Brittleness
Definition:
(n.) Aptness to break; fragility.
Example Sentences:
(1) This method ensures the good preservation of spatial relations between bone elements essential for studies of fossil bones, which are sometimes very brittle.
(2) Ultrastructural studies of Aeromonas hydrophila strain AH26 revealed two distinctive pilus types: "straight" pili appear as brittle, rod-like filaments, whereas "flexible" pili are supple and curvilinear.
(3) Three sibs, a boy and two girls, born to Moroccan consanguineous parents, were affected with a syndrome characterized by brittle hair, mental retardation, short stature, ataxia, and gonadal dysfunction.
(4) In this prospective study the incidence and severity of hypoglycaemia were evaluated in 10 type I brittle diabetic patients under conventional treatment (period A), then under chronic treatment with CSII for at least 1 year (period B: the first 3 months; period C: the last 3 months).
(5) Only few reports exist about the occurrence of brittle nails.
(6) Trichothiodystrophy (TTD) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by brittle hair with reduced sulfur content, ichthyosis, peculiar face, and mental and physical retardation.
(7) The hooves of biotin-deficient swine are weak, brittle, and often necrotic.
(8) The coterie around the prime minister brought their conflict addiction, their brittle tribalism and their self-reinforcing insularity into government.
(9) Nigeria's oil pipelines are battleground for brittle democracy Read more In addition Nigeria’s ethnic, geographic, and religious differences can prove explosive, and it’s unlikely that Buhari – a Muslim from northern Nigeria – will treat the southern Christian Niger Delta militants differently to the Islamic Boko Haram , who this week declared their allegiance to Isis.
(10) We present a young man with Mediterranean type glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency and insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus whose brittle course was characterized by recurrent bouts of hypoglycemia and diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA).
(11) Saudi Arabia had been vehemently opposed to Aoun’s nomination, fearing he will consolidate Iran’s influence on the brittle state, which has remained vulnerable state since the end of its destructive civil war 25 years ago.
(12) The glycemic control of 11 brittle diabetics is improved during the 5 days after a 24 hour connection with the AEP.
(13) One patient with brittle juvenile-onset diabetes had successful control before, during, and after cesarean section.
(14) Holland are favourites, primarily because of their inventive forward players – with Wesley Scheijder in refulgent form and brittle Arjen Robben and Robin Van Persie set to make a record two consecutive starts, the Uruguayan defence will surely be stretched ….
(15) Detection of low-sulfur brittle hair syndrome is also important for genetic counseling because the disease appears to be inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern.
(16) The tricho-rhino-phalangeal syndrome (TRPS) is a rare congenital disorder, characterized by (1) a peculiar and somewhat pear-shaped nose, (2) sparse and brittle scalp hair, and (3) radiographic evidence of cone-shaped epiphyses of the hands.
(17) No problems related to stent migration or brittleness have been encountered.
(18) This decrease in the SRS index has been explained in terms of the relative amounts of strain-hardened material produced as milling severity increased, resulting in an increasing resistance to deformation and thus an apparent increase in brittle behaviour as particle size decreased.
(19) Osteogenesis imperfecta (OGI) is a rare genetic disease which, as a result of a disorder in the formation of the organic stroma of the bone due to a defect in osteogenic function, induces brittle bones, whereby only weak forces bring about multiple, repeated pathological fractures.
(20) He is never going to outdo José Mourinho when it comes to confrontation, brittle one-liners and media positioning – the Chelsea manager is simply too well-practised – but his team reminded everyone here why they are such formidable opponents, and that is always the best way to win these arguments.