Breaker Meaning
/ˈbɹeɪkə/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounSomething that breaks (something else).
nounA machine for breaking rocks, or for breaking coal at the mines.
Sentence Examples
You just need to reset the breaker. Hurry up!
His snoring was a deal breaker.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
The strong wave acted as a powerful ____, tossing the small boat against the rocks.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The powerful ____ crashed against the rocky shore during the big storm.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English breker, brekere, equivalent to break + -er. Cognate with Dutch breker, German Low German Breker, German Brecher.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"My beauty endures even as I endure; still, if thou wilt, oh rash man, have thy will; but blame not me if passion mount thy reason, as the Egyptian breakers used to mount a colt, and guide it whither thou wilt not."
— 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
"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."
— 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 53, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC, pages 279–280:
"And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea"
— 1925, Ezra Pound, Canto I:
"There came a cry "Oh, there be breakers dead ahead!" / From the collier Nightingale"
— 1979, Stan Rogers, “The Flowers of Bermuda” (track 6), in Between the Breaks ... Live!, Dundas, Ontario: Fogarty's Cove Music:
"Their radios had been blocked by a breaker calling himself Yankee Bucket Mouth."
— 2015, Dave Wise, Stuart Wise, Like A Summer With A Thousand Julys:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The strong wave acted as a powerful ____, tossing the small boat against the rocks.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The powerful ____ crashed against the rocky shore during the big storm.