breach

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“
Soon the walls themselves would fall, and Nature would walk in; for the breach was a broad one, and the assault had driven routine away in that gay battle waged by audacity and youth Ah!

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Definitions (36)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (10)

  1. noun An opening, a tear, or a rupture.
  2. noun A gap or rift, especially in or as if in a solid structure such as a dike or fortification.
  3. noun A violation or infraction, as of a law, a legal obligation, or a promise.
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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

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Examples (50)

  • This is especially true if your system administrator fails to detect the breach and the breach is then an ongoing, chronic problem. —  Maximum Security -- Ch 24 -- T
  • The cost of a breach could be a million dollars and the cost of encrypting all your tapes could be a single $18,000 device, Howard said. —  ISP-Planet
  • Sources who tracked the investigation tell Newsmax that the main target of the breach was the Obama passport file, and that the contractor accessed the file in order to "cauterize" the records of potentially embarrassing information. —  Nice Deb
  • The application monitors transactions, queries, objects, stored procedures, and other database elements and sends real-time alerts whenever a breach is attempted.
  • And the airline is complaining about what it calls a breach of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) npractices and normal civil aviation operations. —  Fijilive.com - Gateway to Fiji Islands - News
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This word has been looked up 177 times.

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

violation ·  injustice ·  neglect ·  abuse ·  offence ·  disregard ·  fraud ·  failure ·  mistake ·  injury ·  outrage ·  blunder

Used in the same contextWord Family

breach:   breaches ·  breached ·  breaching
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English breche, from Old English brēc; see bhreg- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from (1) ME. breche, also, without assibilation, breke (later modern English break, n., and dial. breek, q. v.), also brekke (later modern English dial. breck, q. v.), from AS. brece, gebrece, found only in the sense of ‘a piece’ (in comp. brec-mǣlum, piecemeal, hlāf-gebrece, a piece of bread), = OFries. breke, bretse, breze, bresze, breszie, masculine and feminine, a break, breach, fracture, = MD. breke, a break, breach, fracture, = MLG. breke, a breach, violation; the above forms being mixed with (2) ME. bruche, bryche, also, without assibilation, bryke, brike, a breach, violation, injury, ruin (later English dial. brick, a flaw, Scots brick, a breach, a division of land), from AS. bryce, brice (= OHG. bruh, Middle High German G. bruch), masculine, a breaking, breach, fracture, violation, fragment, piece (cf. Middle Dutch breucke, Dutch breuk, feminine, a breaking, fracture, rupture, crime, fine, = German brüche, feminine, a crime, fine); cf. (3) English dial. brock, Anglo-Saxon gebroc, neuter, = Dutch brok, masculine, = OHG. brocco, Middle High German brocke, German brocke, brocken, masculine, = Gothic (Moesogothic) gabruka, feminine, a fragment, piece, bit (see brock); and (4) several other closely related noun forms (see brack, brake, etc.); from brecan (preterit bræc, past participle brocen), break. Breach is thus a deriv. of break, related, in present though not in orig. form, to break as speech is to speak. Hence (from ME. or Middle Low German) Old French MF. breche, bresche, modern F. brèche, a breach, gap, break, injury, later Spanish Portuguese brecha, a breach, = Italian breccia, formerly also brecchia, a breach, a gap, a rupture, = German bresche, a breach in a wall, etc. The Italian breccia, gravel, now technically breccia, = French brèche, breccia, is closely related, but may be taken from the G.: see breccia. See break, n., breek, breck, brick, brack brake, related to and in part identical with breach; see also brick.
  2. from breach, n.
 

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