(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.
Interregnum
Definition:
(n.) The time during which a throne is vacant between the death or abdication of a sovereign and the accession of his successor.
(n.) Any period during which, for any cause, the executive branch of a government is suspended or interrupted.
Example Sentences:
(1) With the stodge and results-first defensiveness of the Verbeek and Osieck interregnums out of the way, it is finally okay to like to the Socceroos again.
(2) Antonio Gramsci described this phenomenon quite aptly in his prison notebooks: "The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."
(3) That odd interregnum has not seen Putin behave in an any less "presidential" way.
(4) One reason for the interregnum could be the gardening leave enforced upon the leading candidate, Stephen Carter, by his former employer, Ofcom.
(5) The interregnum As the emeritus pope leaves the Vatican for the papal residence of Castel Gandolfo – and becomes the first pontiff to resign in 600 years – the operation to choose his successor begins.
(6) But many expected it to be a temporary interregnum before Scotland returned to Labour rule.
(7) There was a weird interregnum on Coronation Street in 1984.
(8) With the throne of St Peter declared empty and the interregnum formally begun, as many of the 208 cardinals who can make the journey will be expected to travel to the Vatican to help run the church in the absence of a pope.
(9) But strategic considerations – the implications of a chaotic interregnum – have forced Mr Mubarak's erstwhile western allies to hold back from publicly insisting on his exit.
(10) T he crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” So said Antonio Gramsci .
(11) Adding that O'Brien was obliged by his office as cardinal to go to the conclave, Pepinster said efforts to investigate the allegations would be delayed by the pope's resignation: "There will be an interregnum until the next pope is elected and much of the work of the Vatican will come to a halt.
(12) A couple of weeks before the French Open, the question of who might replace Ivan Lendl as Andy Murray's coach , following a lengthy interregnum, was discussed on Radio 4's Today programme.
(13) With the throne of St Peter declared empty, a period known as the 'interregnum' has formally begun.
(14) We are in a similarly weird interregnum, knowing that Coronation Street, EastEnders, Hollyoaks, Emmerdale and even the longest-running soap in broadcast history, The Archers , are no longer fit for purpose and are waiting for the how and when they get rubbed out.
(15) United were peppering Ruddy's goal as of old by the end and the Giggs interregnum is off to a highly encouraging start.
(16) Previously youth had been an ill-defined state, but Hall conceptualised a new stage of life: an interregnum between childhood and adulthood that was to be sheltered, shaped and guided to avoid the stresses of puberty.
(17) With Ofcom expansion and board members to be appointed, Fairhead, the current chair of the BBC Trust, is expected to see out her contract until 2018 to ensure continuity during the interregnum.
(18) Labour's strategy is a gift to the right, and particularly to any fire-breathing rightist that can occupy the Tory leadership after the weak Cameron interregnum.
(19) As Antonio Gramsci, the sombre Italian Marxist thinker of the 20s, put it in a famous quote currently popular again with thoughtful British leftists: "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."
(20) The interregnum With the throne of St Peter declared empty and the interregnum formally begun, as many of the 208 cardinals who can make the journey will be expected to travel to the Vatican to help run the church.