different between breach vs gash

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?æ?/
• Rhymes: -æ?

Etymology 1

Alteration of older garsh, from Middle English garsen, from Old French garser, jarsier (Modern French gercer), from Vulgar Latin *charax?re, from Ancient Greek ???????? (kharakt?r, “engraver”).

Alternative forms

• garsh (dated)

Noun

gash (countable and uncountable, plural gashes)

1. A deep cut.
   • 2006, New York Times, “Bush Mourns 9/11 at Ground Zero as N.Y. Remembers”, [1]:

     Vowing that he was “never going to forget the lessons of that day,” President Bush paid tribute last night to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, laying wreaths at ground zero, attending a prayer service at St. Paul’s Chapel and making a surprise stop at a firehouse and a memorial museum overlooking the vast gash in the ground where the twin towers once stood.

2. (slang, vulgar) A vulva.
   • 1959, William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, 50th anniversary edition (2009), p. 126:

     “Oh Gertie it’s true. It’s all true. They’ve got a horrid gash instead of a thrilling thing.”

3. (slang, offensive) A woman
   • 1934, James T. Farrell, The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan, Ch. 19:

     "Will you bastards quit singing the blues? You're young, and there's plenty of gash in the world, and the supply of moon goes on forever," Simonsky said.

4. (slang, British Royal Navy) Rubbish, spare kit
5. (slang) Rubbish on board an aircraft
6. (slang) Unused film or sound during film editing
7. (slang) Poor quality beer, usually watered down.

Translations

Adjective

gash (comparative more gash, superlative most gash)

1. (slang) Of poor quality; makeshift; improvised; temporary; substituted.

Verb

gash (third-person singular simple present gashes, present participle gashing, simple past and past participle gashed)

1. To make a deep, long cut; to slash.

Translations

Etymology 2

From ghastful, by association with gash.

Adjective

gash (comparative more gash, superlative most gash)

1. (Britain, Scotland, dialect) ghastly; hideous

Related terms

• gashful
• gashly

Anagrams

• HAGS, hags, shag