breakdown

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or process of failing to function or continue.
2. n. The condition resulting from this: a breakdown in communication.
3. n. Electricity The abrupt failure of an insulator or insulating medium to restrict the flow of current.
4. n. A typically sudden collapse in physical or mental health.
5. n. An analysis, an outline, or a summary consisting of itemized data or essentials.
6. n. Disintegration or decomposition into parts or elements.
7. n. A noisy, energetic American country dance.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A falling apart, as of a carriage; a downfall; a crash; hence, a failure; a collapse.
2. n. A noisy, lively dance, sometimes accompanied by singing, as in the southern United States.
3. Used or employed in repairing a breakdown, specifically in the railway service: as, a breakdown crew; a breakdown train. Called wrecking-train, etc., in the United States.

Wiktionary

1. n. A failure, particularly mechanical; something that has failed
2. n. A physical collapse or lapse of mental stability
3. n. Listing, division or categorization in great detail
4. n. chemistry Breaking of chemical bonds within a compound to produce simpler compounds or elements.
5. n. A musical technique, by where the music is stripped down, becoming simpler, and can vary in heaviness depending on the genre.
6. n. sports A loss of organization (of the parts of a system).
7. n. US, dated A noisy, rapid, shuffling dance engaged in competitively by a number of persons or pairs in succession, as among the blacks of the southern United States.
8. n. US, dated Any crude, noisy dance performed by shuffling the feet, usually by one person at a time.
9. n. US Any rapid bluegrass dance tune, especially featuring a five-string banjo.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act or result of breaking down, as of a carriage; downfall.
2. n. U.S., U.S. A noisy, rapid, shuffling dance engaged in competitively by a number of persons or pairs in succession, as among the colored people of the Southern United States, and so called, perhaps, because the exercise is continued until most of those who take part in it break down.
3. n. U.S. Any rude, noisy dance performed by shuffling the feet, usually by one person at a time.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. lose control of one's emotions
2. v. make a mathematical, chemical, or grammatical analysis of; break down into components or essential features
3. v. stop operating or functioning
4. v. fall apart
5. v. collapse due to fatigue, an illness, or a sudden attack
6. v. make ineffective
7. v. cause to fall or collapse
8. v. separate (substances) into constituent elements or parts
9. n. a mental or physical breakdown
10. n. a cessation of normal operation
11. n. an analysis into mutually exclusive categories
12. n. the act of disrupting an established order so it fails to continue