Breach
[briːtʃ] or [britʃ]
Definition
(noun.) a failure to perform some promised act or obligation.
(noun.) an opening (especially a gap in a dike or fortification).
Edited by Gene--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) The act of breaking, in a figurative sense.
(n.) Specifically: A breaking or infraction of a law, or of any obligation or tie; violation; non-fulfillment; as, a breach of contract; a breach of promise.
(n.) A gap or opening made made by breaking or battering, as in a wall or fortification; the space between the parts of a solid body rent by violence; a break; a rupture.
(n.) A breaking of waters, as over a vessel; the waters themselves; surge; surf.
(n.) A breaking up of amicable relations; rupture.
(n.) A bruise; a wound.
(n.) A hernia; a rupture.
(n.) A breaking out upon; an assault.
(v. t.) To make a breach or opening in; as, to breach the walls of a city.
(v. i.) To break the water, as by leaping out; -- said of a whale.
Typist: Stanley
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. [1]. Break, fracture, rupture, opening, chasm, gap, crack, flaw, fissure, rent, rift.[2]. Infraction, violation, infringement, non-observance.[3]. Quarrel, difference, variance, disagreement, dissension, schism, misunderstanding, alienation, disaffection, rupture, falling out.
Checked by Brits
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Rupture, divulsion, gap, quarrel, violation, nonperformance
ANT:Integrity, conservation, healing, reconciliation, inviolateness, fulfillment
Inputed by Elliot
Definition
n. a break or opening as in the walls of a fortress: a breaking of law &c. violation of contract covenant promise &c.: a quarrel: a broken condition or part of anything a break: a gap in a fortification—hence 'to stand in the breach ' often used figuratively: a break in a coast-line bay harbour creek (Judges v. 17).—v.t. to make a breach or opening in a wall &c.—Breach of promise often used simply for breach of promise of marriage; Breach of the peace a violation of the public peace by riot or the like.
Inputed by Boris
Examples
- France, Germany, Italy and Spain, were interposed, walls yet without a breach, between us and the plague. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- This healed the breach between the two, never after reopened. Ulysses S. Grant. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
- Time we were off, my dear sir; breach of promise trial-court is generally full in such cases. Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers.
- It is then the interest of the enemies of this potentate to secure and publish this letter, so as to make a breach between his country and ours? Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
- I have a right to complain of it as almost a breach of confidence. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- And then he put it to me, whether it would not be a breach of professional confidence on his part to say more. Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone.
- Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law, no man being injured by the breach? Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- Coming in for Pocket-Breaches. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- And to have entered into the nature of diseases would only have added to his breaches of medical propriety. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- Pocket-Breaches. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- There was little difficulty in entering the grounds, for unrepaired breaches gaped in the old park wall. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
- When he wrote of the _Social Contract_, he did so rather to excuse breaches of the covenant than to emphasize its necessity. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Veneering's object is to let Pocket-Breaches know that his friend on his right (Podsnap) is a man of wealth. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
Editor: Pedro