breach
/ˈbɹit͡ʃ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.13 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A gap or opening made by breaking or battering, as in a wall, fortification or levee / embankment; the space between the parts of a solid body rent by violence.
noun
The act of breaking, in a figurative sense.
noun
A breaking or infraction of a law, or of any obligation or tie; violation; non-fulfillment.
noun
A breaking up of amicable relations, a falling out.
noun
A difference in opinions, social class, etc.
noun
A breaking out upon; an assault.
Example Sentences
- ""Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead.""
- "Services between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh Waverley via Falkirk High are currently suspended, following a 30-metre breach of the Union Canal that occurred on August 12 after torrential rain and thunderstorms. The thousands of gallons of water that cascaded onto the railway line below washed away track, ballast and overhead line equipment, and undermined embankments along a 300-metre section of Scotland's busiest rail link."
- "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;"
- "breach of promise"
- "There's fallen between him and my lord / An unkind breach."
- "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."
Etymology
From Middle English breche, from Old English bryċe (“fracture, breach”) and brǣċ (“breach, breaking, destruction”), from Proto-West Germanic *bruki, from Proto-Germanic *brukiz (“breach, fissure”) and *brēkō (“breaking”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: breche, bryċe, *bruki, *brukiz
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈbɹit͡ʃ/
- British English: /ˈbɹiːt͡ʃ/