ˈneck-break, adv. and n.
[Cf. break-neck.]
A. adv. In a break-neck or headlong manner.
In dial. use also as adj.: see Eng. Dial. Dict.
| 1631 R. H. Arraignm. Whole Creature xv. §2. 256 Ventring neck-breake, (as Goates in Winter, that climbe for Ivie) over Pales, and Walles. 1705 Hickeringill Priest-cr. iii. Wks. 1716 III. 162 That they may ride them Neck-break to both their Destructions here and hereafter. 1877 Holderness Gloss., Neck-brek, -brake,..impetuously, at dangerous speed. |
† B. n. Sc. = break-neck n.
| a 1665 W. Guthrie Serm. 14 (Jam.), Folks poring over much on the tentation is their neck-break and their snare. 1709 Bruce Serm. in Kirkton Hist. Ch. Scot. (1817) 274 Beware of Scripture, for you may be your own neck-break. |
So neck-breaking vbl. n. and ppl. a.
| 1650 Fuller Pisgah ii. ix. §19 Soon after happned..Eli's heart-breaking with the news, neck-breaking with his fall. 1810 Sporting Mag. XXXVI. 166 The Baronet begged leave to decline the neck-breaking experiment. 1852 R. S. Surtees Sponge's Sp. Tour (1893) 39 Fox-hunting.., though exciting and exhilarating, does not..present such conveniences for neck-breaking as people..imagine. |