break-up, n.
[f. verbal phr. to break up: see break v. 57. For the stress see break-down.]
The action or fact of breaking up; disruption, separation into parts, disintegration (lit. and fig.); e.g. decay of animal functions; change from fine or settled weather, or from frost; dispersal or dissolution of a meeting, company, society, or system. break-up price or value, the price or value of assets at the break-up of a concern.
| 1795 Ld. Auckland Corr. (1862) III. 292 The sudden break-up of Lord Fitzwilliam's Government in Ireland. 1836 S. Laing Trav. Norway (L.) The break-up of the cold weather soon followed. 1836–9 Todd Cycl. Anat. & Phys. II. 630/1 The break-up which..follows..morbid alterations of the heart. 1864 Times 23 Dec., The sounds of mirth and song that usually mark the break-up of a large English school. 1878 Browning Poets Croisic xxxvii, An epitaph On earth's break-up. 1899 Westm. Gaz. 4 Dec. 10/2 A trade valuer was examined to show that he had advised the Grices to sell their business..at a break-up price. 1902 Ibid. 15 Nov. 7/1 At break-up values the assets of the company would pay 10s. in the pound to preference shareholders. 1930 Economist 1 Feb. 233/1 Shares of most of them are now selling below or close to their ‘break-up’ asset value. 1968 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 17 Feb. B 8 The breakup value is no more than 10 cents a share. |
| attrib. 1843 J. T. Coleridge in Arnold's Life & Corr. (1844) I. i. 11 One break-up party was held in the junior common room at the end of each term. |