Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The change of a simple vowel to a diphthong, especially in various Germanic languages, often caused by the influence of neighboring consonants.
- 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
- 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.
- 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
- v. present participle of break.
- n. linguistics A change of a vowel to a diphthong
- n. music A form of ornamentation in which groups of short notes are used instead of long ones
- n. break dancing
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. p. pr. & vb. n. of break, v. i.
- adj. (Journalism) Still happening or becoming known at the present time; -- used of news reports.
- n. The act of breaking something.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the act of breaking something
Etymologies
- 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.”
“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.”
“Mr. Haywood may be the one to catch dropping in for a tag breaking from the rail.”
“Now *that's* what I call a breaking news story . . .”
“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.”
“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.”
“And I broke what we call breaking, I broke past name, rank, serial number.”
“In total, during the 90-minute debate, the Bush camp distributed 11 of what they called breaking the debate facts.”
“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.”
“They had last seen each other on what they called their breaking-up row at the school.”
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