English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From break +‎ time.

Noun

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breaktime (countable and uncountable, plural breaktimes)

  1. (US) A break for a worker or workers that splits a period of work.
    • 2007, National Labor Relations Board (U.S.) (editor), Decisions and Orders of the National Labor Relations Board, Volume 346: November 28, 2005—May 8, 2006, page 39,
      Supervisor Laws asserts that when the incident occurred it was not the breaktime of either Tingler or Parnell. (4:760,789.)
  2. (UK) A break for schoolchildren between lessons.
    • 1992, David Freer, Towards Open Schools: Possibilities and Realities for Non-Racial Education in South Africa[1], page 130:
      It tends to evaluate the liking for, and the acceptance of, the pupils in their class as peers, rather than asking children to specifically select their friends, breaktime and home companions.
    • 2006, Brigette Bishop, Promoting Friendships in the Playground: A Peer Befriending Programme for Primary Schools[2], page 4:
      The significance of breaktimes as a mechanism for children to develop social competence is highlighted in much of Peter Blatchford's work.
    • 2010, Karen Littleton, Clare Wood, Judith Kleine Staarman, International Handbook of Psychology in Education, page 231:
      Designed by architects working for Norman Foster, it had no playground and no morning breaktime.

Synonyms

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