Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as breast-stoping.
  • noun In machinery, the curved channel in which a breast-wheel turns.
  • noun The bed against which the wheel of a ragengine works.
  • noun A method of deer-hunting in which several horsemen ride abreast through the cover and shoot from the saddle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Mach.) The curved channel in which a breast wheel turns. It is closely adapted to the curve of the wheel through about a quarter of its circumference, and prevents the escape of the water until it has spent its force upon the wheel. See breast wheel.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of breast.
  • noun engineering The curved channel in which a breastwheel turns.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Twice, after tortuous effort, squirming and twisting, he failed in breasting the big trunk, and on the third attempt, after infinite exertion, he cleared it only to topple helplessly forward and fall on his face in the tangled undergrowth.

    CHAPTER 23 2010

  • Orson Welles's Othello "waded through the great speeches, pausing before the stronger words like a landing craft breasting a swell."

    A challenging role for a complex thespian Celia Wren 2011

  • Others waddled, Dominic Cork bustled, Richard Ellison scampered, Derek Pringle pranced doing a kind of human dressage, and the more rotund were as chest-on as an old maid breasting the billows off Cromer beach in early spring.

    Praveen Kumar's rare style of swing bowling is as bold as it is old | Rob Bagchi 2011

  • Generally speaking, lucky folk who do get lots of birds have to take practical steps, the rest of us can cook the whole bird. with all birds, even doves, if not breasting out be sure to open up the throat and clean out the crop.

    what is the easiest way to clean a goose properly? and what is a good recipe for goose? 2010

  • Generally speaking, lucky folk who do get lots of birds have to take practical steps, the rest of us can cook the whole bird. with all birds, even doves, if not breasting out be sure to open up the throat and clean out the crop.

    what is the easiest way to clean a goose properly? and what is a good recipe for goose? 2010

  • The one, half-amphibian, breasting the water with muscular arms, could not hope to overtake or escape an enemy who propelled a fire-hollowed tree trunk by means of a wooden paddle; nor could the other, trusting to his own nimbleness, compete with a foe who careered wildly across the plain on the back of a half-broken stallion.

    The Shrinkage of the Planet 2010

  • On the flat roof, where post office workers were once provided with segregated male and female shooting ranges, is stationed a white resin figure, breasting the elements.

    The Real Thing; The Concise Dictionary of Dress 2010

  • My father stalked the bridge like a trainee version of the grizzled Captain McWhirr in Conrad's Typhoon, or a general sort of Conradian amalgam, grimly breasting aside Fate, thinking how nice it would be if only he could harbour some dark secret or had some hidden flaw which a crisis would fatally show up.

    'Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History' 2010

  • My father stalked the bridge like a trainee version of the grizzled Captain McWhirr in Conrad's Typhoon, or a general sort of Conradian amalgam, grimly breasting aside Fate, thinking how nice it would be if only he could harbour some dark secret or had some hidden flaw which a crisis would fatally show up.

    'Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History' 2010

  • I'm a brilliant polymath, a clocked genius breasting the tape as an expert in philosophy, literature, sociology, quantum theory, a virtuoso on all stringed and keyed instruments, a capable visual artist, and an obscenely degenerate chain-smoking drunk!

    Excerpt from Urdoxa 2.0 2010

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