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  1. breaking love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. The change of a simple vowel to a diphthong, especially in various Germanic languages, often caused by the influence of neighboring consonants.
  2. n. A form of urban dance involving styles such as rocking, popping, and b-boying, usually performed to funk. Also called break dancing.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. In worsted-manuf., the process of uniting the short slivers, as received from the comber, into one continuous rope or sliver, by doubling and running through drawing-webs.
  2. n. [Imitation of German brechung.] In philology, the change of one vowel to two before certain consonants, as, in Anglo-Saxon (where the phenomenon abounds), earm for *arm, arm, eorthe for *erthe, earth, etc.

Wiktionary

  1. v. present participle of break.
  2. n. linguistics A change of a vowel to a diphthong
  3. n. music A form of ornamentation in which groups of short notes are used instead of long ones
  4. n. break dancing

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. p. pr. & vb. n. of break, v. i.
  2. adj. (Journalism) Still happening or becoming known at the present time; -- used of news reports.
  3. n. The act of breaking something.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. the act of breaking something

Etymologies

  1. Translation of German Brechung. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “He shows how frequently this principle is misunderstood by the inexperienced, who seem to think that rubato means breaking the time; whereas true rubato is the _bending_ of the time, but not _breaking_ it.”

    Piano Mastery Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers

  • “I believe the official description is that it broke even, but that relies on a highly creative definition of the term 'breaking even'," Maharaj said.”

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed

  • “Mr. Haywood may be the one to catch dropping in for a tag breaking from the rail.”

    NY Daily News

  • “Now *that's* what I call a breaking news story . . .”

    Imagine the subeditor's glee

  • “In the broadcast business when there is what we call a breaking story, we refer to what we do as ‘continuing coverage,’ but this is an extraordinary story that plows new ground.”

    Simon & Schuster: Orbit

  • “The interesting thing to me -- what I referred to as the breaking of a social contract in the other thread -- is the manner in which the NGE was rolled out.”

    Order 66

  • “And I broke what we call breaking, I broke past name, rank, serial number.”

    Hullabaloo

  • “In total, during the 90-minute debate, the Bush camp distributed 11 of what they called breaking the debate facts.”

    CNN Transcript Oct 11, 2004

  • “If they really needed to, they could scare up more troops, but they're trying to maintain the force levels there without what they call breaking the force -- Lou.”

    CNN Transcript Nov 4, 2003

  • “They had last seen each other on what they called their breaking-up row at the school.”

    All for a Scrap of Paper A Romance of the Present War

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‘breaking’ has been looked up 1800 times, added to 1 list, and has a Scrabble score of 15.