(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.
Respite
Definition:
(n.) A putting off of that which was appointed; a postponement or delay.
(n.) Temporary intermission of labor, or of any process or operation; interval of rest; pause; delay.
(n.) Temporary suspension of the execution of a capital offender; reprieve.
(n.) The delay of appearance at court granted to a jury beyond the proper term.
(n.) To give or grant a respite to.
(n.) To delay or postpone; to put off.
(n.) To keep back from execution; to reprieve.
(n.) To relieve by a pause or interval of rest.
Example Sentences:
(1) Because of potential complications that can develop for chronically ill geriatric patients, a hospital setting for respite can be a viable respite alternative.
(2) They must also instruct patients not to wear extended wear lenses longer than 7 days at a time and to allow for an overnight respite from lens wear after this period of use.
(3) Nursing implications suggested by this study relate to helping the caregivers in the early mobilization of their own informal resources for respite care and to assisting caregivers to deal with the emotional aspects of caregiving.
(4) The stomach must need some respite from the cold shock of missing relatively straightforward opportunities.
(5) At the time, it was a lone moment of respite for the Americans in what had become an unrelenting assault.
(6) To celebrate its eighth birthday, Twitter is offering each user a respite from @Jack, and the ability to go back in time and read their own first tweet.
(7) Practical and policy issues are raised regarding the desirability of investment in respite care.
(8) Total number of hospital days was equivalent for the respite group and community-based control patients and was fewer than that for the acute care group.
(9) Support to those providing informal care might also be facilitated through community support services such as respite care, household maintenance, psychological support to care-givers, support groups, informal networks within a community and consideration of unconventional support methods.
(10) However, Buddies does more than simply offer respite care or home help.
(11) This year's floods – the result of record rainfall from April to early July, and with little respite in sight – have been exacerbated by the very dry spring.
(12) Arab Iraqi notables would travel to Kurdistan for vacations, skiing and a respite from the chaos of war.
(13) This is a farewell message [from a doctor] whose fate along with that of his companions is death or arrest at any moment.” One resident said the airstrikes had subsided by Tuesday morning due to lower visibility and rain, offering a brief respite to civilians who were still on the move and seeking shelter in the rebel districts.
(14) She recounts her prolonged campaign to get respite care (which no one had told her she was entitled to), and later to get funding to send her son to a residential school.
(15) He added: "continued low interest rates and the start of a fall in inflation offer only limited respite.
(16) They will bear the brunt of the job cuts in the public sector and they will also be expected to make up for the disappearance of local social services such as respite and home care as local government implements the huge front-end-loaded cuts this government has demanded.
(17) Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian Curators: Institute of Architecture – Dorota Jedruch, Marta Karpinska, Dorota Lesniak-Rychlak, Michał Wisniewski A welcome respite from the barrage of information on display elsewhere, the Polish pavilion presents a stark marble tomb, looming in the centre of the bright white space like some gothic fantasy.
(18) A five-day ceasefire in Yemen is expected to begin on Tuesday, offering much-needed respite for civilians who have endured almost seven weeks of Saudi-led air strikes against Iranian-backed rebels.
(19) Sudden onset of confusion without obviously remediable cause and the need for respite care are indications for referral.
(20) Four wards accept acutely ill patients of both sexes, and a further five offer a mixture of rehabilitation and respite care.