Breach Meaning
/ˈbɹiːt͡ʃ/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA 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.
nounThe act of breaking, in a figurative sense.
Sentence Examples
Mr Smith is accused of breach of contract.
They made a breach in the wall.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The security team worked to ____ the old wall for renovation.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The large waves caused a serious ____ in the city's ancient stone wall.
Word Origin & History
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”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
""Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead.""
— 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
"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."
— 2020 August 26, “Network News: Major flood damage severs key Edinburgh-Glasgow rail artery”, in Rail, page 21:
"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;"
— 1748, David Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section 3, § 12:
"There's fallen between him and my lord / An unkind breach."
— c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
"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."
— 2013 September 28, Kenan Malik, “London Is Special, but Not That Special”, in New York Times, retrieved 28 Sep 2013:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The security team worked to ____ the old wall for renovation.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The large waves caused a serious ____ in the city's ancient stone wall.