Handbrake

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A brake in a vehicle, set by hand, and usually locking on until released by hand, enabling its use when parked.

    "On arrival at Spiez, the locomotive (No. 206) was immediately uncoupled and drew ahead to enable an Italian through coach from Interlaken to Milan to be loose shunted (with passengers aboard and controlled by means of its handbrake) on to the front of the train."

  2. 2
    The mechanism, particularly the locking hand-operated lever or foot-operated toggle lever in a motorcar or the hand-operated crank on a railcar, which is used to set and release such a brake.
Verb
  1. 1
    To apply the handbrake in a vehicle.

Synonyms

All synonyms
parking brakeparking brake

Example

More examples

"Tom drove through town with his handbrake on, without noticing it."

Etymology

From hand + brake.

Related phrases

handbrake turnrelease the handbrake

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.