different between breach vs broken

English

Etymology

From Middle English breche, from Old English bry?e (“fracture, breach”) and br?? (“breach, breaking, destruction”), from Proto-West Germanic *bruki, from Proto-Germanic *brukiz (“breach, fissure”) and *br?k? (“breaking”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [b?i?t?]
• Rhymes: -i?t?
• Homophone: breech

Noun

breach (plural breaches)

1. A 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

   Synonyms: break, rupture, fissure

   • 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V, act 3, scene 1:

     "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead."
2. A breaking up of amicable relations, a falling-out.
3. A breaking of waters, as over a vessel or a coastal defence; the waters themselves

   A clear breach is when the waves roll over the vessel without breaking. A clean breach is when everything on deck is swept away.

   Synonyms: surge, surf

4. A breaking out upon; an assault.
5. (archaic) A bruise; a wound.
6. (archaic) A hernia; a rupture.
7. (law) A breaking or infraction of a law, or of any obligation or tie; violation; non-fulfillment

   breach of promise

8. (figuratively) A difference in opinions, social class etc.
   • 2013 September 28, Kenan Malik, "London Is Special, but Not That Special," New York Times (retrieved 28 September 2013):

     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.

9. The act of breaking, in a figurative sense.
   • 1748, David Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section 3, § 12:

     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;

Synonyms

• break
• rift
• rupture
• gap

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

breach (third-person singular simple present breaches, present participle breaching, simple past and past participle breached)

1. (transitive) To make a breach in.

   They breached the outer wall, but not the main one.

2. (transitive) To violate or break.
   • 2000, Mobile Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast, Inc. v. United States, Justice Stevens.

     "I therefore agree with the Court that the Government did breach its contract with petitioners in failing to approve, within 30 days of its receipt, the plan of exploration petitioners submitted."

3. (transitive, nautical, of the sea) To break into a ship or into a coastal defence.
4. (intransitive, of a whale) To leap out of the water.
   • 1835, Hart, Joseph C., Miriam Coffin, or The whale-fishermen, Harper & brothers, vol. 2, page 147:

     The fearless whale-fishermen now found themselves in the midst of the monsters; ... some ... came jumping into the light of day, head uppermost, exhibiting their entire bodies in the sun, and falling on their sides into the water with the weight of a hundred tons, and thus "breaching" with a crash that the thunder of a park of artillery could scarcely equal.

   • 1837, Hamilton, Robert, The natural history of the ordinary cetacea or whales, W.H. Lizars, page 166:

     But one of its most surprising feats, as has been mentioned of the genera already described, is leaping completely out of the water, or 'breaching,' as it is called. ... it seldom breaches more than twice or thrice at a time, and in quick succession.

Translations

Anagrams

• Bacher

English

Etymology

From Middle English broken, from Old English brocen, ?ebrocen, from Proto-Germanic *brukanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *brekan? (“to break”). Cognate with Dutch gebroken (“broken”), German Low German broken (“broken”), German gebrochen (“broken”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: br?k'?n, IPA^(key): /?b???k?n/
• Rhymes: -??k?n

Verb

broken

1. past participle of break

Adjective

broken (comparative more broken, superlative most broken)

1. Fragmented, in separate pieces.
   1. (of a bone or body part) Fractured; having the bone in pieces.

   2. (of skin) Split or ruptured.

   3. (of a line) Dashed, made up of short lines with small gaps between each one and the next.
   4. (of sleep) Interrupted; not continuous.
      • 1906, Jack London, White Fang:

        Then the circle would lie down again, and here and there a wolf would resume its broken nap.

   5. (meteorology, of the sky) Five-eighths to seven-eighths obscured by clouds; incompletely covered by clouds.

   6. (of a melody) having periods of silence scattered throughout; not regularly continuous.
2. (of a promise, etc) Breached; violated; not kept.

3. Non-functional; not functioning properly.
   1. (of an electronic connection) Disconnected, no longer open or carrying traffic.
   2. (software, informal) Badly designed or implemented.

   4. (of language) Grammatically non-standard, especially as a result of being produced by a non-native speaker.
   5. (colloquial, US, of a situation) Not having gone in the way intended; saddening.

4. (of a person) Completely defeated and dispirited; shattered; destroyed.

5. Having no money; bankrupt, broke.

   (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

6. (of land) Uneven.
7. (sports and gaming, of a tactic or option) Overpowered; overly powerful; too powerful.

Usage notes

• Nouns to which "broken" is often applied: glass, vase, cup, mirror, window, bone, wing, leg, arm, hand, foot, heart, egg, tool, sword, column, road, bridge, stick, device, machine, camera, TV, car, computer, promise, vow, law, trust, dream, relationship, friendship, love, family, marriage, bond, tie, silence, ground, land, circle, image, language, spirit, soul.

Synonyms

• (fragmented—bone, objects et al): burst, split; see also Thesaurus:broken
• (fragmented—line, sleep et al): intermittent, spasmodic; see also Thesaurus:discontinuous
• (not kept): violated
• (non-functional): borked, malfunctioning; see also Thesaurus:out of order
• (completely defeated): rekt
• (having no money): destitute, skint; see also Thesaurus:impoverished
• (uneven land):
• (overpowered): OP, unbalanced

Hyponyms

• heartbroken
• housebroken
• jailbroken

Derived terms

• brokenhearted, broken-hearted
• Broken Hill
• brokenly
• brokenness
• unbroken

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

• broken at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Borken, bonker, borken