(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.
Snaffle
Definition:
(n.) A kind of bridle bit, having a joint in the part to be placed in the mouth, and rings and cheek pieces at the ends, but having no curb; -- called also snaffle bit.
(v. t.) To put a snaffle in the mouth of; to subject to the snaffle; to bridle.
Example Sentences:
(1) 4.44pm BST O'Sullivan's safety has not be up to much today, and he leaves a red that Selby snaffles, followed by a green and red, almost screwing back the cue ball into the left middle.
(2) It means improving the schools that deprived kids are in already, rather than promising new ones and being surprised when sharper-elbowed parents snaffle the places.
(3) 88 min: Now Endo takes a swipe from distance, Souleymanou spilling but later snaffling.
(4) After each attack, the sharks swam round in a gentle arc and returned to the spot to snaffle the stunned and dead sardines.
(5) Broad's not bowled well today, but he tempts Sangakkara with slight width - and Sangakkara flashes, toe-ending to gully, where Bell dives low and left to snaffle an excellent catch.
(6) But after opening up the last reds, he's clumsy again and leaves a red to the top left which Selby snaffles up.
(7) Eventually a ball's pinged down the inside-right channel for Robben, but it's got far too much weight on it and Julio Cesar comes out to snaffle.
(8) If I'm home in Kent, I feed my two spaniels, have a cup of tea and defend my digestive biscuits from being snaffled by my crafty dogs.
(9) In came a giant private company, "partnered" Rosemary's charity, ruined it, snaffled up a much bigger grant than Rosemary had, hired staff on the cheap with one weekend's training, and sacked Rosemary (a psychotherapist with decades of experience), who perhaps didn't put up as much of a fight as she could have done, because she was weakened at the time by an infected broken ankle, so trudging up and down long prison corridors wasn't easy.
(10) His low shot towards the near post is easily snaffled by De Gea.
(11) Vaunting an enviable quality of life and a sizeable finance sector of 180,000 workers, Paris, home to some of Europe’s largest banks and the Euronext Paris stock exchange, hopes to snaffle 20,000 City jobs , its lobby group Europlace said.
(12) Januzaj steps up - and sees his quick prod down the middle snaffled by Mannone.
(13) The same formula remains in active use: clubs who sent scouts to this year’s South American Under-17 Championship in Paraguay found they had turned up too late to snaffle its star and top scorer, the 16-year-old Ponte Preta forward Leandro.
(14) It’s more government money thrown at London, this time on a vanity project, when the capital already snaffles so much spending on new infrastructure.
(15) The throngs who snaffled free, highly sought tickets for his parade through Central Park, gave lucrative business to the hawkers of papal kitsch: $5 for badges, $10 for T-shirts and tote bags.
(16) If so, then you won’t mind me snaffling a few bottles and reselling them out in the street at a 400% mark-up!
(17) Radoslaw Sikorski says Cameron has alienated potential allies by indulging the irreconcilable Europhobes in his party and by permitting the routine depiction of migrants to the UK from eastern Europe as welfare-snaffling parasites.
(18) He'd already enjoyed some success, having "fallen into an acting class" when he was 17, and then snaffled the role of Danny Byrne on the BBC series Ballykissangel .
(19) It's pretty lame, all told, Neuer snaffling it into his arms with ease.
(20) But none of these shows has enjoyed the stellar ratings of Miranda, the sitcom which was snaffled by BBC1 after two series on BBC2.