name, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
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"She slammed the brakes when she saw a child run in front of the car."
"Rounds rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough, / To shelter thee from tempest and from rain."
"Give the car a quick brake."
"Methods of applying pain were many and ingenious, in particular the ways of twisting, stretching and manipulating the body out of shape, normally falling under the catch-all term of the rack, or the brakes."
"You shall kneade[…]first with handes‥lastly with the brake."
"He was shooting, and the field where the [cock-fighting] ring was verged on the shooting-brake where the rabbits were."
"It had been arranged as part of the day’s programme that Mr. Cooke was to drive those who wished to go over the Rise in his new brake."
"Auxiliaries and ancillaries are comprehensive, and include a Westinghouse motor-driven recriprocating compressor used for locomotive braking and general service air, two rotary exhauster sets for train brakes when hauling passenger or fitted freight trains, and an oil-fired train heating boiler."
"The farmer’s son brakes the flax while mother brakes the bread dough"
"And all the people brake off the golden earrings […]"
"The Representative said he will put a brake on spending."
A device used to slow or stop the motion of a wheel, or of a vehicle, usually by friction (although other resistive forces, such as electromagnetic fields or aerodynamic drag, can also be used); also, the controls or apparatus used to engage such a mechanism such as the pedal in a car.
Common synonyms include: accelerator, arrest, auto, automobile, backpedal, backwater.
The Representative said he will put a brake on spending.
Pronounced /bɹeɪk/.
Origin uncertain; possibly from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German brake (“nose ring, curb, flax brake”), which according to Watkins is related to sense 4 and from Proto-Germanic *brekaną (“to break”).
Apparently a shortened form of bracken. (Compare chick, chicken.)
From Old English *bracu, attested in a plural compound form fearnbraca (“thickets of fern”), probably from Proto-Germanic *brekaną (“to break”) and influenced by sense 2 (“fern”). Compare Middle Low German brake (“stump, branch”).
Late Middle English, from Middle Low German brake, Dutch braak, Old Dutch braeke; possibly related to sense 1.
Uncertain.
Inflected forms.