breaker

---

Pronunciation

• (British) IPA: /ˈbɹeɪkə/
• (America) enPR: brāʹkər, IPA: /ˈbɹeɪkɚ/

Noun

breaker (plural breakers)

1. Something that breaks.
2. A machine for breaking rocks, or for breaking coal at the mines
3. The building in which such a machine is placed.
4. A person who specializes in breaking things.
5. (chiefly, in the plural) A wave breaking into foam against the shore, or against a sandbank, or a rock or reef near the surface, considered a useful warning to ships of an underwater hazard
   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 53

     Now and then in the lagoon you hear the leaping of a fish [...]. And above all, ceaseless like time, is the dull roar of the breakers on the reef.

   • 1925, Ezra Pound, Canto I:

     And then went down to the ship,

     Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea

   • 1979, Stan Rogers, The Flowers of Bermuda:

     There came a cry: Oh, there be breakers dead ahead! / From the collier, Nightingale,

6. (colloquial) A breakdancer.
7. A user of CB radio.
   • 2015, Dave Wise, ‎Stuart Wise, Like A Summer With A Thousand Julys

     Their radios had been blocked by a breaker calling himself Yankee Bucket Mouth.

8. (primarily plural) Clipping of shipbreaker.

Synonyms

• (something that breaks) destroyer, wrecker
• (machine for breaking rocks or coal)
• (building containing such a machine)
• (wave)
• (breakdancer) B-boy (male), B-girl (female), breakdancer

Translations

• French: casseur

Translations

• French: concasseuse
• German: Brecher

Translations

• French: lame
• German: Brecher
• Italian: cavallone
• Russian: буру́н

Noun

breaker (plural breakers)

1. A small cask of liquid kept permanently in a ship's boat in case of shipwreck.
   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 4

     Then the conversation broke off, and there was little more talking, only a noise of men going backwards and forwards, and of putting down of kegs and the hollow gurgle of good liquor being poured from breakers into the casks.

---

This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003