• enPR: brāk, IPA: /bɹeɪk/

brake (plural brakes)

1. A fern; bracken. [from 14th c.]

brake (plural brakes)

1. A thicket, or an area overgrown with briers etc. [from 15th c.]

   • He halts, and searches with his eyes

     Among the scatter'd rocks:

     And now at distance can discern

     A stirring in a brake of fern […]

   • 1593, [William Shakespeare], Venvs and Adonis, London: Imprinted by Richard Field, […], OCLC 837166078 ↗; Shakespeare’s Venvs & Adonis: […], 4th edition, London: J[oseph] M[alaby] Dent and Co. […], 1896, OCLC 19803734 ↗:

     Rounds rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough, / To shelter thee from tempest and from rain.

   • 1808 February 21, Walter Scott, “(please specify the introduction or canto number, or chapter name)”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: Printed by J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, OCLC 270129616 ↗:

     He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone.

brake (plural brakes)

1. A tool used for breaking flax or hemp. [from 15th c.]
2. A type of machine for bending sheet metal. (See wikipedia.)
3. A large, heavy harrow for breaking clods after ploughing; a drag.

• French: broie, brisoir
• German: Flachsbreche
• Italian: gramola
• Spanish: agramadera

brake (brakes, present participle braking; past and past participle braked)

1. (transitive) To bruise and crush; to knead

   The farmer's son brakes the flax while mother brakes the bread dough

2. (transitive) To pulverise with a harrow

brake (plural brakes)

1. (military) An ancient engine of war analogous to the crossbow and ballista.
   1. (obsolete) The winch of a crossbow. [14th-19th c.]
2. (chiefly nautical) The handle of a pump.

   Synonyms: swipe

3. A device used to slow or stop the motion of a wheel, or of a vehicle, by friction; also, the controls or apparatus used to engage such a mechanism such as the pedal in a car. [from 18th c.]
   1. The act of braking, of using a brake to slow down a machine or vehicle
   2. (engineering) An apparatus for testing the power of a steam engine or other motor by weighing the amount of friction that the motor will overcome; a friction brake.
   3. (figuratively) Something used to retard or stop some action, process etc.
4. A baker's kneading trough.
5. A device used to confine or prevent the motion of an animal.
   1. A frame for confining a refractory horse while the smith is shoeing him.
   2. An enclosure to restrain cattle, horses, etc.
      • 1868, March 7, The Illustrated London News, number 1472, volume 52, “Law and Police”, page 223 ↗:

        He was shooting, and the field where the [cock-fighting] ring was verged on the shooting-brake where the rabbits were.

      • A horse […] which Philip had bought […] and because of his fierceness kept him within a brake of iron bars.

   3. A cart or carriage without a body, used in breaking in horses.^{Brake (carriage)}
   4. A carriage for transporting shooting parties and their equipment.^{Shooting-brake}
6. That part of a carriage, as of a movable battery, or engine, which enables it to turn.

• Dutch: gekstok
• French: bringuebale
• German: Geckstock, Geck, Pumpengeck, Pumpenschwengel
• Italian: manovella della tromba
• Portuguese: embalete
• Russian: рука́в
• Spanish: guimbalete

• French: frein
• German: Bremse
• Italian: freno
• Portuguese: freio, (Portugal) travão
• Russian: то́рмоз
• Spanish: freno

• German: Bremse
• Portuguese: freio
• Russian: то́рмоз

brake (brakes, present participle braking; past and past participle braked)

1. (intransitive) To operate (a) brake(s).
2. (intransitive) To be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking.

• (to operate brakes)
• (to be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking) See also Thesaurus:stop

• (to operate brakes) floor it, put the pedal to the metal, redline
• (to be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking) accelerate

• French: freiner
• German: bremsen
• Italian: frenare
• Portuguese: freiar
• Russian: тормози́ть
• Spanish: frenar

• German: bremsen
• Portuguese: freiar
• Spanish: frenar

brake (plural brakes)

1. (obsolete) A cage. [16th-17th c.]
2. (now historical) A type of torture instrument. [from 16th c.]
   • 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin 2012, p. 83:

     Methods of applying pain were many and ingenious, in particular the ways of twisting, stretching and manipulating the body out of shape, normally falling under the catch-all term of the rack, or the brakes.

1. (archaic) simple past tense of break
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Exodus 32:3 ↗:

     And all the people brake off the golden earrings {{...}

1. Surname