释义 |
▪ I. breaking, vbl. n.|ˈbreɪkɪŋ| [f. break v. + -ing1.] The action of the vb. break. 1. a. in transitive senses.
c975Rushw. Gosp. Luke xxiv. 35 On brecunge breodes. a1300Cursor M. 8044 (Gött.) Widuten breking of any bow. 1382― Sel. Wks. III. 521 Cristis disciplis knewen him in brekynge of þe breed. 1514in Glasscock Rec. St. Michael's Bp. Stortford (1882) 33 For brekyng of Ground in the cherche at the buryyng of her husband. 1533–4Act 25 Hen. VIII, xviii. §1 Spinninge, cardinge, breakinge, and sorting of wolles. 1589Puttenham Eng. Poesie (Arb.) 258 Euery poore scholler..cals it the breaking of Priscians head. 1590Shakes. Com. Err. iii. i. 74 Breake any breaking here, and Ile breake your knaues pate. 1722Wollaston Relig. Nat. ix. 202 Burnings, crucifixions, breakings upon the wheel. 1813Examiner 18 Jan. 42/2 A breaking of windows on the ground-floor. 1823Lockhart Reg. Dalton i. iv. (1842) 19. b. with an adverb: see the vb.
1607Hieron Wks. I. 270 No breaking off of olde sinnes. 1610MS. Acc. St. John's Hosp., Canterb., For breacking owt of a tre. 1842Dickens Amer. Notes I. viii. 307 Blowings-up in steam-boats and breakings down in coaches. 1850Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom xxiii. 226 Dodo..was now getting his breaking in, at the hands of his young master. 1864Burton Scot Abr. II. i. 77 A general breaking-open of the prisons. 1868W. Collins Moonst. (1871) 234 The breaking-off of the engagement. 1957J. S. Huxley Relig. without Rev. viii. 198 The breaking-down of other substance. c. The act of forcing a passage into another person's house or other building; freq. in phr. breaking and entering, = housebreaking.
1617[see housebreaking]. 1729G. Jacob Law-Dict. O1/2 If a Thief unlocks a Door, or draws the Latch of a Room, to rob..these are a Breaking. 1797Tomlins Jacob's Law-Dict. I. Bb3/1 A Felony at common law, in (1) breaking and entering (2) the mansion house of another..to the intent to commit some felony. 1855[see burglary1 a]. 1939N. Marsh Overture to Death viii. 93 A breaking and entering job at Moorton Park with..her ladyship's jewellery gone. d. In woollen manufacture, the operation by which short combed slivers are combined and made into continuous lengths. Also breaking-in.
1843Penny Cycl. XXVII. 554/1 The breaking being thus effected, the sliver of wool proceeds to a large bobbin or cylinder. 1915R. Beaumont Woollen & Worsted 631 The piece, having been scoured, milled, dried, and tentered, is evenly damped, raised, or raised across before being passed onto the teazle machine. This is called ‘breaking-in’. e. Phonology. [After G. brechung.] = fracture n. 5. Also applied to different sound changes in Old Norse and other Germanic languages.
1871F. A. March Compar. Gram. Anglo-Saxon. i. 20 Breaking is the change of one vowel to two by a consonant. 1874A. J. Ellis E. E. Pronunc. iv. xi. 1270 Grimm considers breaking mainly due to the action of a following r, h. 1937Language XIII. 123 (title) Breaking in Old Norse and Old English. Ibid., Under breaking I include here the change of a front vowel in a stressed syllable to a diphthong by the influence of following velar elements whether these be consonants in the same syllable [in O.E.] or vowels in the next [in O.N.]. 2. a. in intransitive senses.
1647Fuller Good Th. in Worse T. (1841) 74 Pref., The difference betwixt downright breaking and craving time of their creditors. 1662Gerbier Princ. 39 A noise of breaking of their Waves on the Shoar. 1719De Foe Crusoe (1840) xiii, The breaking of the sea upon their ship. 1727― Eng. Tradesm. vii. (1841) I. 47 Breaking is the death of a tradesman. 1874Black Pr. Thule 8 The breaking of the waves along the hard coast. b. with an adverb.
1535Coverdale Job xxx. 14 Y⊇ breakynge in of waters. 1563Homilies ii. Disobedience i. (1859) 551 The breach of obedience and breaking in of rebellion. 1711Addison Spect. No. 39 ⁋5 Abrupt Pauses and Breakings-off in the middle of a Verse. 1719De Foe Crusoe (1840) iii, My breaking away from my parents. c. breaking (of the meres) = waterbloom. Cf. break v. 5 c.
1884W. Phillips in Trans. Shrops. Archæol. Soc. VII. 285 The breaking is called in German ‘Wasserblüthe’ (water-blossom). 1927West & Fritsch Treat. Brit. Freshwater Algae 451 The phenomena of ‘water-bloom’ and the ‘breaking of the meres’ are due to the sudden and often periodical appearance of large quantities of a few species of Myxophyceae. 1948New Biol. V. 21 This ‘water bloom’ or ‘breaking of the meres’ may be quite sudden. 3. breaking of the day: daybreak, dawn.
1523Ld. Berners Froiss. I. xviii. 25 In the brekyng of the daye ii. trompettis of Scotland mette with the Englisshe scout-watche. 1611Bible Gen. xxxii. 24 There wrestled a man with him, vntill the breaking of the day. 1658A. Fox tr. Wurtz' Surg. ii. xviii. 128 At mornings near the breaking of the day they are most pained. †4. A breach or gap. Obs.
a1300E.E. Psalter cv[i]. 23 He suld am have for-lorn; If noght Moises..Had standen in brekinge in his sight. 1676Moxon Print Letters 24 The Breakings and Wants in the Arches you must work in by hand. 5. A piece of land newly broken up. (U.S.)
1883Pamphlet Jamestown (Dakota) Board of Tr., He earned enough besides, with what he raised on his breaking, to keep himself. 6. breaking-out: an eruption; an outburst.
1552Huloet, Breakyng out of chyldrens mouths called exulceration. a1649Drummond of Hawthornden Hist. Jas. III Wks. 44 The authors of every breaking-out and sedition. 1652French Yorksh. Spa xv. 115 The Scab, the Itch, the Scurff..and all such breakings out. 1783F. Michaelis in Med. Commun. I. 356 There appeared a breaking-out on the forehead. 1854H. Miller Sch. & Schoolm. xxv. (1857) 544 On the breaking out of the controversy. 7. breaking up, = break-up.
1463Bury Wills (1850) 34, I wil that my household be kept hool to gedyr..vj hool wykkes aftir my dissees and at the brekyng vp I wil myn executours and they haue a good dyner to gedyr. 1612Brinsley Lud. Lit. 195 To giue them Theams before their breaking vp at noone. 1726Amherst Terræ Fil. xlii. 222 Many a school-boy has done more than this for his breaking-up task. 1768Tucker Lt. Nat. II. 625 It is presumed the boy will come home at breakings-up. 1832Nat. Philos. (U. K. S.) II. Pneum. Introd. 70 The breaking-up of the monsoons is the name given by sailors to the shifting of the periodical winds. 8. attrib. as in breaking(-up) plough; breaking-weight; breaking-crop, the first crop on newly broken ground; breaking-down, the action of converting a log into sawn timber; also attrib.; cf. break v. 51 f and break-down 3; breaking-down rollers (see quot.); breaking-engine, (a) in paper-manufacture, a machine for washing and pulping rags, a breaker; (b) in woollen-manufacture, a carding-machine; breaking-frame, a machine for drawing out the slivers in spinning wool; breaking-off, the removal of the piece of surplus metal from newly-cast type; also attrib.; breaking-point, (a) the point, or degree of stress, at which a particular material breaks; (b) fig. the point at which a person's strength or endurance fails, or at which a situation becomes critical; breaking-rollers, an apparatus for the mechanical kneading of dough; breaking-strain, -strength, -stress, the strain or stress required to break a particular material or object.
1813Vancouver Agric. Devon 181 It has occurred..for lay oats to have been made the breaking-crop.
1883M. P. Bale Saw-Mills xxxviii. 331 Breaking down, in sawing, is dividing the baulk into boards or planks. 1913A. I. Carr Country Work & Life in N.Z. xxiv. 40 ‘Breast’ benches (where the flitches from the breaking-down saw are cut into commercial sizes) are still used in many mills. 1922R. C. Bryant Lumber iv. 81 The breaking down of the log continued until it was reduced to a size which could be worked by the saws C and D. 1949E. de Mauny Huntsman in Career 162 The scream of the bandsaws on the breaking-down bench.
1839Ure Dict. Arts 860 Two pairs of rollers, which, from being used to consolidate the metal by rolling whilst hot, are termed breaking-down rollers.
a1877Knight Dict. Mech., Breaking-engine, the first of a series of carding-machines, to receive and act on the lap from the lapper; it has usually coarser clothing than the finishing-cards. 1880J. Dunbar Pract. Papermaker 71 When furnished in the breaking-engine, wash thoroughly before letting down the roll.
1875Ure Dict. Arts III. 1163 The slivers..are drawn out and extended by the rollers of the breaking-frame.
1683Moxon Mech. Exerc., Printing 176 Breaking off is commonly Boys-work: It is only to Break the Break from the Shanck of the Letter. 1839Ure Dict. Arts 1261 From the breaking-off boy the types are taken to the rubber. 1921Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §279 Breaker.., breaker-off, breaker-off boy [also breaking-off boy], breaks off superfluous wedge-shaped piece of metal, which adheres to lower surface of type when type leaves casting machine, by pressing lower surface of type against table.
1853Knickerbocker XLII. 593 The great ‘breaking-plough’..goes tearing..through the roots and grubs. 1899Pitman Key to Business Corresp. 23 The breaking point of the yarn is guaranteed to be not less than 36 pounds weight for 120 yards. 1908H. G. Wells War in Air iv. 102 Elaborating the apparatus of war, until the accumulating tensions should reach the breaking-point. Ibid. xi. 353 Under the stresses of the war their endurance reached the breaking point. 1922Joyce Ulysses 365 Transparent stockings, stretched to breaking point.
1845Dodd Brit. Manuf. V. 24 The dough is..placed under the breaking-rollers..which perform the office of kneading. 1886S. W. Mitchell R. Blake xix. 181 The engineer speaks of the breaking-strain in material; the breaking-strain in morals was near for Octopia. 1888[see strain n.2 9]. 1902Encycl. Brit. XXXIII. 11/2 A medium steel..showed a breaking strength of 39 tons per square inch. 1960B.S.I. News Jan. 2 The belt has a breaking strength of 2 tons and weighs only a little over 2 lb.
1940Chambers's Techn. Dict. 111/1 Breaking stress. 1959Chambers's Encycl. XIII. 224/2 Once the breaking stress has been measured it is easy to calculate the permitted working stress by dividing by the appropriate factor of safety.
1781M. Patten Diary (1903) 438 Our 4 oxen and breaking up plow helped james Walker break up.
1851Illust. Lond. News 4 Jan. 10 The breaking weight being 30 tons. ▪ II. breaking, ppl. a.|ˈbreɪkɪŋ| [f. break v.] 1. That breaks, in various senses (chiefly intr.) of the verb.
1590Shakes. Com. Err. ii. ii. 128 A drop of water in the breaking gulfe. 1593― Rich. II, iii. ii. 3 Your late tossing on the breaking Seas. 1655S. Ashe Fun. Serm. 18 June 11 He was ready to fall upon idolatrous Israel with breaking blowes. 1674Fairfax Bulk & Selv. 51 Beams differently breaking or refrangible. 1678Manton Wks. (1871) II. 190 His ruinous and breaking condition. 1713Young Last Day ii. 187 Breaking dawn Rouz'd the broad front. 1769Falconer Dict. Marine (1789) Ecume, the froth or foam of a breaking sea. 1814Southey Roderick xxiv, Within her breaking heart. 1820Byron Juan v. cliv, To save the credit of their breaking bank. 1881Daily News 9 July 2 Lucas was bowled for a breaking ball. b. with down, in, up, etc.
1853Kane Grinnell Exp. xxxviii. (1856) 347 The first breaking-in day of Spring. 1858Greener Gunnery 237 An apparently crazy and breaking-up constitution displays itself most clearly. 1879MacCarthy Own Times II. 306 The confusion was that of a breaking-down system. 2. In comb. with ns., as heart-breaking, etc.
1874Aldrich Prud. Palfrey vii. (1885) 116 It was heart-breaking work sometimes and back-breaking work always. 3. breaking-joint: see break v. 31 and joint n. |