(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.
Infract
Definition:
(a.) Not broken or fractured; unharmed; whole.
(v. t.) To break; to infringe.
Example Sentences:
(1) The estimated yearly hospital admission rate for nonfatal myocardial infraction is 2.1 per 100,000 married women aged 30-39 years who do not use oral contraceptives and 5.6 per 100,000 for married women of this age who do.
(2) Until the final quarter San Diego had looked lost in the windy conditions at Mile High, conceding repeated neutral-zone infractions and failing to show any adventure on offense.
(3) Typical manic episodes could be the cause of penal infractions, usually benign.
(4) As at the five other jails in Philadelphia, inmates and advocates have accused Curran-Fromhold of overcrowding, unhealthy conditions , inadequate mental health services and repeated infractions by guards.
(5) It is suggested that infraction of the metatarsal head resulted from microfracture caused by abnormal stress.
(6) The EC has rejected both proposals and commenced formal infraction proceedings against the UK.
(7) The outstanding features in this study are: (1) the occurrence of infraction during the recovery period and the noxious role played by smoking; (2) the contrast between the presence of atherosclerotic coronary lesions in middle age subjects and their absence in younger subjects (infarction due to spasm or thrombosis?
(8) There is, for example, the case of a 34-year-old local woman forced to remove her headscarf by male police officers following an alleged minor traffic infraction, a 10-year-old elementary school student in a nearby suburb who is bullied everyday by his classmates labelling him an Isis terrorist, or the group of East Michigan college students arrested after they peacefully protested a campus screening of the controversial blockbuster American Sniper .
(9) In the cases of ventricular tachycardia with old myocardial infraction, the initiation and termination of the tachycardia could be achieved by programmed electrical stimulation in 13 out of 18 patients.
(10) Critics said the scheme, under which police are also targeting infractions by lorry and car drivers, distracted from the primary issues of better cycling infrastructure and the perils of heavy goods vehicles.
(11) Noncompliance with universal precautions occurs frequently during the care of patients who have undergone surgery, with the type of infraction and specific offender varying according to patient locale.
(12) Fifty-two patients with myocardial infraction complicated by bundle branch block (27 RBBB and 25 LBBB) survived the hospital period (1967--1972), and were followed up to December 1976.
(13) Penalties have been assessed for rule infractions to aid in curtailing the misuse of such equipment, as occurs for example, when the helmet is used to spear tackle an opponent or when the facemask is grasped, pulled, or twisted by an opposing player.
(14) Photograph: Felix Clay Of 13 deportees the Guardian interviewed in Tijuana last week, nine said they were picked up for minor infractions.
(15) Finally he remembered a man who had been suspended by the ANC for some minor infraction of discipline and who was only too pleased to show repentance by driving his president anywhere he wanted at any time of day or night.
(16) The association of a primary cardiac lymphoma in a 53-year-old man with a previously documented myocardial infraction was found.
(17) In addition to periostosis and sclerosis there is also a clearing as an expression of interrupted bone in a form of infraction, fissure or fracture.
(18) A case of Freiberg's Infraction of the second metatarsal is presented.
(19) During 1416 appendectomy operations we examined the ileum and found 42 cases of terminal ileum infraction (ileum terminale duplex) caused by the cicatrisation of the mesenterium.
(20) Their rate of absenteeism and suspensions for continuing abuse and infraction of the rules was four times that of the controls.