break-
The verb-stem in composition forming ns. or adjs.
I. With verb + object.
1. Forming ns., as break-bones, the Ossifrage or Osprey; break-bulk, one who breaks bulk, a captain that abstracts part of his cargo; break-circuit, a device for opening and closing an electric circuit; break-club (Golf), any obstacle on which the player might break his club; † break-forward, an alleged old name of the hare; † break-gap, that which opens a passage; † break-hedge, a trespasser; † break-league, a breaker of a league or treaty; † break-love, a disturber or destroyer of love; † break-net, the Dog-fish or Thresher; † break-peace, a peace-breaker; † break-promise, a promise-breaker; † break-pulpit, a boisterous preacher; † break-vow, a breaker of vows; breakwind, (a) dial. a disease of sheep; (b) a screen or protection against the wind.
| 1881 A. C. Grant Bush Life Queensland xxix. II. 133 One of the men..has managed to stop the *break-aways. |
| 1838 Poe A. G. Pym Wks. 1864 IV. 123 It is frequently called the *break-bones, or osprey peterel. |
| 1622 R. Hawkins Voy. S. Sea (1847) 166 To smother their owne disloyalties, in suffering these *breake-bulks to escape. |
| a 1884 Knight Dict. Mech. Suppl., *Break-circuit, an arrangement on an electro-magnetic or magneto-electric instrument, by which an operator can open or close the circuit at pleasure. |
| 1857 Chambers Inform. II. 67, Lifting of *Break-clubs.—All loose impediments within twelve inches of the ball may be removed on or off the course when the ball lies on grass. |
| c 1300 Names of Hare in Rel. Ant. I. 13 The make-fare, the *breke-forwart. |
| 1645 E. Pagitt Heresiogr. (1662) Ep. Ded., The *break-gap to all those mischiefs that flowed in upon the King. |
| 1573 Tusser Husb. (1878) 33 Keepe safe thy fence, scare *breakhedge thence. |
| 1583 Stanyhurst æneis iv. (Arb.) 113 Al faythlesse *break leages. |
| Ibid. 143 Like a *breaklooue mak'bat adultrer. |
| 1583 J. Higins Junius' Nomenclator, *Breakenet, a sea⁓dog or dogfishe. 1623 Minsheu Sp. Dict., Lamia, a certaine dog-fish called a Breaknet. |
| 1593 Pass. Morrice 73 Our only *breakepeace. |
| 1600 Shakes. A.Y.L. iv. i. 196, I will thinke you the most patheticall *breake-promise. |
| 1589 Marprel. Epit. F, Som of our bishops are very great *breakepulpits. |
| 1583 Stanyhurst æneis iv. (Arb.) 444 This *breakuow naughtye. 1596 Shakes. John ii. ii. 569 That Broker, that still breakes the pate of faith. That dayly breake-vow. |
| 1823 Hogg Sheph. Cal. I. 110 It never saw either braxy or *breakwind. 1833 in W. S. Ramson Austral. Eng. (1966) 95 Breakwind. 1862 J. S. Dobie S. Afr. Jrnl. 26 Sept. (1945) 32 A tarpaulin hung on weather side for a break⁓wind. 1863 Fraser's Mag. Mar. 282/2 What the Australians call a ‘breakwind’, i.e., a pent roof, looking like the falling flap of a large bird-trap. 1875 Encycl. Brit. II. 317/2 The Norway maple..is a hardy tree, used as a breakwind in exposed situations on the east coast. 1890 Athenæum 18 Oct. 516/1 [Tasmanians] were frequently content with a mere break-wind in lieu of any covered structure. 1934 A. Russell Tramp-Royal vii. 54 The only form of shelter I needed was a small breakwind. |
2. Forming
adjs., as
break-axe, that breaks axes, as in
break-axe tree,
Sloanea Jamaicensis;
break-bone, bone-breaking, as in
break-bone fever, the
dengue, an infectious eruptive fever of warm climates; also
ellipt.;
break-covert, that breaks covert;
† break-dance, disturbing, turbulent;
break-teeth or
-tooth, difficult to pronounce. See also
break-back,
break-neck.
| 1756 P. Browne Jamaica 250 The *Brake-axe Tree. It is so very hard that it is found a difficult matter even to cut it down. |
| 1862 N.Y. Tribune 16 May, Another fever, to which the natives [of the south-western United States] give the name..of *Breakbone. 1866 A. Flint Princ. Med. (1880) 1073 Excruciating pains in the head, eyes, muscles of the neck, loins, and extremities are prominent traits of the affection; hence the name breakbone fever. 1885 A. Brassey The Trades 395 A ship with several cases of ‘Dengue’, or ‘Breakbone fever’ on board. |
| 1820 Keats Isabella xxviii, The *break-covert blood-hounds. |
| 1586 J. Hooker Girald. Irel. Ep. Ded., This brainesicke and *breakedanse Girald of Desmond..did breake into treasons. |
| 1788 Grose Dict. Vulgar T. (ed. 2), *Break-teeth Words, hard words, difficult to pronounce. 1825 H. Wilson Mem. I. 48 Not to put in any break-teeth long words. 1827 Scott Jrnl. 11 Feb. (1939) II. 21 The Admiral with the break-tooth name. |
II. With the
vb. used
attrib. = breaking; as
break-iron, etc.;
break crop, in arable farming: a different kind of crop sown to break the continuity in repeated sowing of cereals;
break-dancing orig. U.S., a style of dancing popularized by
U.S. Blacks, often individual or competitive, and characterized by a loud insistent beat to which dancers perform energetic and acrobatic movements, sometimes spinning around on their backs on the pavement or floor (pioneered during the late 1970s by teams of Black teenaged dancers in the south Bronx,
N.Y.); also
break-dancer;
break-piece = break n.1 17 a;
break-roll, one of a pair of rollers between which wheat-grains are split;
break-signal, a signal used to separate distinct parts of a telegraphic message.
| 1967 Punch 10 May 687/2 Other..*break crops include roots, oats, and oil seed rape. 1971 Country Life 23 Sept. 771/1 The break crop was needed firstly to restore the drain on fertility as a result of successive cereal crops. 1984 ‘D. Archer’ Ambridge Years 114 Rape provides a very useful ‘break crop’ by preventing some of the diseases you can get if you plant corn over and over again on the same land. |
| 1982 Village Voice (N.Y.) 21 Sept. 61/1 The Smurf is a fusion dance..a dance incorporating smoothed out elements of *break dancing. Ibid. 31 Aug. 55/2 Men in battery-powered visors lit up and dimmed,..break dancers broke. 1983 Daily News 23 Sept. 18 They are young street dudes, nearly all of them black, anywhere from 10 to 23 years old, and what they are doing is a new style of dancing known as ‘breaking’ or ‘break dancing’. It is the first new dance phenomenon in the cities in more than a decade. 1984 New Yorker 5 Mar. 43/2 The Bronx is very bebop—street music with a heavy, funky brass beat—which is good for electric boogie and break-dancing. 1985 Sunday Tel. (Colour Suppl.) 3 Feb. 32/4 The streets of New York and Los Angeles might twitch with coke-sniffers, break-dancers and the denizens of the eighties, but the old America was not dead yet. |
| 1881 Mechanic §383. 166 The *break-iron by which the shaving is turned in its upward course. |
| 1842 Francis Dict. Arts Q 2 b/1 The fore part of the spindle is terminated by a wire, and a *break piece at the end of it. 1879 G. B. Prescott Sp. Telephone 253 An electromagnet with a self-interrupting breakpiece attached to its armature. |
| 1910 Encycl. Brit. X. 551/2 The first pair of *break-rolls used to be called the splitting rolls, because their function was supposed to be to split the [wheat] berry longitudinally down its crease. |
| 1876 Preece Telegraphy 287 These parts are separated from each other by a distinct signal, called the *break signal. |