breach

See also breech

English

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Pronunciation

Etymology

From Middle English breche, from Old English briċe, bryċe (“breach, fracture, breaking, infringement; fragment”), from Proto-Germanic *brukiz (“breach, fissure”), from Proto-Germanic *brukōną, *brekaną (“to break”). Cognate with Scots breach, breiche, bretch, breack (“breach”), Saterland Frisian breeke (“breach, break”), Dutch breuk (“breach”), German Bruch (“breach”). More at break.

Noun

breach (plural breaches)

  1. The act of breaking, in a figurative sense.
    • 1748, David Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section 3, § 12:
      But were the poet to make a total difression from his subject, and introduce a new actor, nowise connected with the personages, the imagination, feeling a breach in transition, would enter coldly into the new scene;
  2. (law) A breaking or infraction of a law, or of any obligation or tie; violation; non-fulfillment; as, a breach of contract; a breach of promise.
  3. A gap or opening made by breaking or battering, as in a wall, fortification or levee; the space between the parts of a solid body rent by violence; a break; a rupture; a fissure.
    • 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V, act 3, scene 1:
      "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead."
  4. A breaking up of amicable relations, a falling-out.
  5. A breaking of waters, as over a vessel or a coastal defence; the waters themselves; surge; surf.
    • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe:
      I cast my eye to the stranded vessel, when, the breach and froth of the sea being so big, I could hardly see it, it lay so far of; and considered, Lord! how was it possible I could get on shore.
  6. A breaking out upon; an assault.
  7. (archaic) A bruise; a wound.
  8. (archaic) A hernia; a rupture.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Terms derived from breach (noun)

Translations

figuratively: the act of breaking
break of a law or obligation
gap
breaking up of amicable relations
breaking of waves
assault
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Verb

breach (third-person singular simple present breaches, present participle breaching, simple past and past participle breached)

  1. (transitive) To make a breach in.
    They breached the outer wall, but not the main one.
  2. (transitive) To violate or break.
    • 2000, Mobile Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast, Inc. v. United States, Justice Stevens.
      "I therefore agree with the Court that the Government did breach its contract with petitioners in failing to approve, within 30 days of its receipt, the plan of exploration petitioners submitted."
  3. (transitive, nautical, of the sea), to break into a ship or into a coastal defence
  4. (intransitive) (of a whale) to leap clear out of the water
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Last modified on 19 May 2013, at 23:47