Breakdown

Whenever he was behind the wheel, he would panic at the first sign of a breakdown.

He declared that these drastic steps would undoubtedly inconvenience a good many people, but the alternative was bankruptcy of the Ulster Transport Authority and the breakdown of public transport services.

We saw a breakdown by the side of the road.

Looking at the breakdown of the budget, I see a few items we could cut.

The railways' monopoly had meant that accountancy and record-keeping had been limited to global accounts. In other words, there were only really headline numbers, with little useful breakdown by routes or traffic type.

I am quite competent to answer all / Demands, in any such capacity— / But of the break-down of my general aims: […]

What else than Feudalism could have followed upon the breakdown of that great centralized governmental machine known as the Roman Empire?

After so much stress, he suffered a breakdown and simply gave up.

[H]e was led away to a private sanitarium for mental disease, while in the newspapers appeared pathetic accounts of his mental breakdown and of the saintliness of his character.

England beat Georgia in their Pool B World Cup match in Dunedin but the stuttering nature of the performance will be of concern to manager Martin Johnson. Georgia, ranked 16th in the world, dominated the breakdown before half-time and forced England into a host of infringements, but fly-half Merab Kvirikashvili missed three penalties.

When players appeal to the referee, as they so often do, for penalties at breakdowns when the supposed offender is being deliberately pinned down by their own teammates, they should understand they do their sport a small but significant disservice.

And now it's time for a breakdown.

Izzy [Stradlin] lays down some big chords while Slash plays the song's banjo breakdown of a theme.

The fired-up foursome [Trial] takes itself very seriously, singing politically charged lyrics, which, in the tradition of Strife and Damnation AD, are strategically placed in the middle of slamming, moshable breakdowns.

Come, hold on, boys, do n't clear out when the quadrilles are over, for we are going to have a break down to wind up with.

Towards nine the three miners said that as they had brought their instruments they might as well tune up, for the boys and girls would soon be arriving now, and hungry for a good old fashioned break[-]down. A fiddle, a banjo, and a clarinet—these were the instruments. The trio took their places side by side, and began to play some rattling dance-music, and beat time with their big boots.

Without a change of countenance, as if he were deaf to her entreaties and threats, he tuned up the banjo, and played a breakdown.

The banjo built up to breakdown speed and then took a sidestep into another register, an oddly complex net of notes which stretched out for a time and finally stopped on a full rest.

Her mother had not only gotten knocked up and lost her man when Sunset was thirteen, she soon took up with a traveling shoe salesman who played the banjo, wandered away with him and his shoes, probably to the sound of a banjo breakdown, leaving a note that read: "Sorry, Sunset, I got to go. Mama loves you. I left you a good pair of shoes in there on the kitchen table. They shine up easy."

The grown-ups were lolling around on the porch and in the yard, finger snapping and foot tapping while Samuel played "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" on his five-string banjo.