• IPA: [bɹiːtʃ]

breach (plural breaches)

1. 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

   Synonyms: break, rupture, 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."

2. A breaking up of amicable relations, a falling-out.
   • c. 1603–1604, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act IV, scene i]:

     There's fallen between him and my lord / An unkind breach.

3. A breaking of waters, as over a vessel or a coastal defence; the waters themselves

   A clear breach is when the waves roll over the vessel without breaking. A clean breach is when everything on deck is swept away.

   • Bible, 2 Sam. 5 v. 20

     The Lord hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me as the breach of waters.

   Synonyms: surge, surf
4. A breaking out upon; an assault.
   • Bible, 1 Chron. xiii. 11

     The Lord had made a breach upon Uzza.

5. (archaic) A bruise; a wound.
   • Bible, Leviticus xxiv. 20

     breach for breach, eye for eye

6. (archaic) A hernia; a rupture.
7. (legal) A breaking or infraction of a law, or of any obligation or tie; violation; non-fulfillment

   breach of promise

8. (figurative) A difference in opinions, social class etc.
   • 2013 September 28, Kenan Malik, "London Is Special, but Not That Special ↗," New York Times (retrieved 28 September 2013):

     For London to have its own exclusive immigration policy would exacerbate the sense that immigration benefits only certain groups and disadvantages the rest. It would entrench the gap between London and the rest of the nation. And it would widen the breach between the public and the elite that has helped fuel anti-immigrant hostility.

9. 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;

• break
• rift
• rupture
• gap

• German: Bruch
• Italian: breccia
• Portuguese: parada
• Russian: разры́в
• Spanish: brecha

• French: infraction, violation
• German: Verstoß
• Italian: infrazione, violazione
• Portuguese: infração
• Russian: наруше́ние
• Spanish: violación, brecha

• French: brèche
• German: Bruch, Bresche
• Italian: breccia
• Portuguese: fissura
• Russian: брешь
• Spanish: brecha, batería, boquete

• French: brouille
• German: Bruch
• Portuguese: término
• Russian: разры́в отношение
• Spanish: disolución

• German: Brechen
• Spanish: quebrada

• Russian: штурм
• Spanish: brecha

breach (breaches, present participle breaching; 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 out of the water.
   • 1835, Hart, Joseph C., Miriam Coffin, or The whale-fishermen, Harper & brothers, vol. 2, page 147:

     The fearless whale-fishermen now found themselves in the midst of the monsters; ... some ... came jumping into the light of day, head uppermost, exhibiting their entire bodies in the sun, and falling on their sides into the water with the weight of a hundred tons, and thus "breaching" with a crash that the thunder of a park of artillery could scarcely equal.

   • 1837, Hamilton, Robert, The natural history of the ordinary cetacea or whales, W.H. Lizars, page 166:

     But one of its most surprising feats, as has been mentioned of the genera already described, is leaping completely out of the water, or 'breaching,' as it is called. ... it seldom breaches more than twice or thrice at a time, and in quick succession.

1. (computing) A particular security exploit against HTTPS when using HTTP compression, based on the CRIME exploit.