different between break vs lever

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: br?k, IPA^(key): /b?e?k/, [b??e??k]
• Rhymes: -e?k
• Homophone: brake

Etymology 1

From Middle English breken, from Old English brecan (“to break”), from Proto-West Germanic *brekan, from Proto-Germanic *brekan? (“to break”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?reg- (“to break”). The word is a doublet of bray.

Verb

break (third-person singular simple present breaks, present participle breaking, simple past broke or (archaic) brake, past participle broken or (colloquial) broke)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To separate into two or more pieces, to fracture or crack, by a process that cannot easily be reversed for reassembly.
   1. (transitive, intransitive) To crack or fracture (bone) under a physical strain.

2. (transitive) To divide (something, often money) into smaller units.

3. (transitive) To cause (a person or animal) to lose spirit or will; to crush the spirits of.
   • 1613, William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, Henry VIII, Act IV, Sc. 2:

     An old man, broken with the storms of state,

     Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;

     Give him a little earth for charity

   1. To turn an animal into a beast of burden.
      • 2002, John Fusco, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

        Colonel: See, gentlemen? Any horse could be broken.

4. (intransitive) To be crushed, or overwhelmed with sorrow or grief.

5. (transitive) To interrupt; to destroy the continuity of; to dissolve or terminate.
   1. (transitive, theater) To end the run of (a play).
      • 1958, Walter Macqueen-Pope, St. James's: Theatre of Distinction (page 134)

        In July Alexander broke the run and went on tour, as was his custom. He believed in keeping in touch with provincial audiences and how wise he was!

      • 1986, Kurt Gänzl, The British Musical Theatre: 1865-1914 (page 610)

        After Camberwell he broke the play's season and brought it back in the autumn with a few revisions and a noticeably strengthened cast but without any special success.

6. (transitive) To ruin financially.

   • With arts like these rich Matho, when he speaks, / Attracts all fees, and little lawyers breaks.

7. (transitive) To violate, to not adhere to.
8. (intransitive, of a fever) To pass the most dangerous part of the illness; to go down, in terms of temperature.

   Susan's fever broke at about 3 AM, and the doctor said the worst was over.

9. (intransitive, of a spell of settled weather) To end.

10. (intransitive, of a storm) To begin; to end.

11. (intransitive, of morning, dawn, day etc.) To arrive.
12. (transitive, gaming slang) To render (a game) unchallenging by altering its rules or exploiting loopholes or weaknesses in them in a way that gives a player an unfair advantage.

13. (transitive, intransitive) To stop, or to cause to stop, functioning properly or altogether.
    1. (specifically, in programming) To cause (some feature of a program or piece of software) to stop functioning properly; to cause a regression.

14. (transitive) To cause (a barrier) to no longer bar.
    1. (specifically) To cause the shell of (an egg) to crack, so that the inside (yolk) is accessible.
    2. (specifically) To open (a safe) without using the correct key, combination, or the like.
15. (transitive) To destroy the arrangement of; to throw into disorder; to pierce.

16. (intransitive, of a wave of water) To collapse into surf, after arriving in shallow water.
17. (intransitive) To burst forth; to make its way; to come into view.
    • 1800, William Wordsworth, The Fountain

      And from the turf a fountain broke, / And gurgled at our feet.

18. (intransitive) To interrupt or cease one's work or occupation temporarily.

19. (transitive) To interrupt (a fall) by inserting something so that the falling object does not (immediately) hit something else beneath.

20. (transitive, ergative) To disclose or make known an item of news, etc.

21. (intransitive, of a sound) To become audible suddenly.
    • c. 1843,, George Lippard, The Battle-Day of Germantown, reprinted in Washington and His Generals "1776", page 45 [2]:

      Like the crash of thunderbolts[...], the sound of musquetry broke over the lawn, [...].

22. (transitive) To change a steady state abruptly.

23. (copulative, informal) To suddenly become.

24. (intransitive) Of a male voice, to become deeper at puberty.
25. (intransitive) Of a voice, to alter in type due to emotion or strain: in men generally to go up, in women sometimes to go down; to crack.

26. (transitive) To surpass or do better than (a specific number), to do better than (a record), setting a new record.

27. (sports and games):
    1. (transitive, tennis) To win a game (against one's opponent) as receiver.
    2. (intransitive, billiards, snooker, pool) To make the first shot; to scatter the balls from the initial neat arrangement.

    3. (transitive, backgammon) To remove one of the two men on (a point).
28. (transitive, military, most often in the passive tense) To demote, to reduce the military rank of.
    • 1953 February 9, “Books: First Rulers of Asia”, in Time:

      And he played no favorites: when his son-in-law sacked a city he had been told to spare, Genghis broke him to private.

    • 1968, William Manchester, The Arms of Krupp, Back Bay (2003), ?ISBN, page 215:

      One morning after the budget had failed to balance Finanzminister von Scholz picked up Der Reichsanzeiger and found he had been broken to sergeant.

    • 2006, Peter Collier, Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty, Second Edition, Artisan Books, ?ISBN, page 42:

      Not long after this event, Clausen became involved in another disciplinary situation and was broken to private—the only one to win the Medal of Honor in Vietnam.

29. (transitive) To end (a connection), to disconnect.

30. (intransitive, of an emulsion) To demulsify.
31. (intransitive, sports) To counter-attack
32. (transitive, obsolete) To lay open, as a purpose; to disclose, divulge, or communicate.
33. (intransitive) To become weakened in constitution or faculties; to lose health or strength.
    • 1731, Jonathan Swift, Verses on His Own Death

      See how the dean begins to break; / Poor gentleman he droops apace.

34. (intransitive, obsolete) To fail in business; to become bankrupt.
    • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Riches

      He that puts all upon adventures doth oftentimes break, and come to poverty.

35. (transitive) To destroy the strength, firmness, or consistency of.

36. (transitive) To destroy the official character and standing of; to cashier; to dismiss.
    • January 11, 1711, Jonathan Swift, The Examiner No. 24

      when I see a great officer broke.

37. (intransitive) To make an abrupt or sudden change; to change the gait.

38. (intransitive, archaic) To fall out; to terminate friendship.
    • c. 1700 Jeremy Collier, On Friendship

      To break upon the score of danger or expense is to be mean and narrow-spirited.

39. (computing) To terminate the execution of a program before normal completion.
40. (programming) To suspend the execution of a program during debugging so that the state of the program can be investigated.

Conjugation

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:break.

Synonyms

• (ergative: separate into two or more pieces): burst, bust, shatter, shear, smash, split
• (ergative: crack (bone)): crack, fracture
• (transitive: turn an animal into a beast of burden): break in, subject, tame
• (transitive: do that which is forbidden by): contravene, go against, violate
• (intransitive: stop functioning): break down, bust, fail, go down (of a computer or computer network)

Antonyms

• (transitive: cause to end up in two or more pieces): assemble, fix, join, mend, put together, repair
• (tennis, intransitive: break serve): hold

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Coordinate terms

• bork
• breaking
• broke
• broken

Translations

Noun

break (plural breaks)

1. An instance of breaking something into two or more pieces.

2. A physical space that opens up in something or between two things.

3. A rest or pause, usually from work.

4. (Britain) a time for students to talk or play.
5. A short holiday.

6. A temporary split with a romantic partner.

7. An interval or intermission between two parts of a performance, for example a theatre show, broadcast, or sports game.
8. A significant change in circumstance, attitude, perception, or focus of attention.

9. The beginning (of the morning).

10. An act of escaping.

11. (computing) The separation between lines, paragraphs or pages of a written text.
    • 2001, Nan Barber, ?David Reynolds, Office 2001 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual (page 138)

      No matter how much text you add above the break, the text after the break will always appear at the top of a new page.

12. (computing) A keystroke or other signal that causes a program to terminate or suspend execution.
13. (programming) Short for breakpoint.
14. (Britain, weather) A change, particularly the end of a spell of persistent good or bad weather.
15. (sports and games):
    2. (tennis) A game won by the receiving player(s).
    3. (billiards, snooker, pool) The first shot in a game of billiards
    4. (snooker) The number of points scored by one player in one visit to the table
    5. (soccer) The counter-attack
    6. (surfing) A place where waves break (that is, where waves pitch or spill forward creating white water).

16. (dated) A large four-wheeled carriage, having a straight body and calash top, with the driver's seat in front and the footman's behind.
17. (equitation) A sharp bit or snaffle.
    • 1576, George Gascoigne, The Steele Glas

      Pampered jades […] which need nor break nor bit.

18. (music) A short section of music, often between verses, in which some performers stop while others continue.

19. (music) The point in the musical scale at which a woodwind instrument is designed to overblow, that is, to move from its lower to its upper register.

20. (geography, chiefly in the plural) An area along a river that features steep banks, bluffs, or gorges (e.g., Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, US).
21. (obsolete, slang) error [late 19th–early 20th c.]

Usage notes

• music The instruments that are named are the ones that carry on playing, for example a fiddle break implies that the fiddle is the most prominent instrument playing during the break.

Synonyms

• (instance of breaking something into two pieces): split
• (physical space that opens up in something or between two things): breach, gap, space; see also Thesaurus:interspace or Thesaurus:hole
• (rest or pause, usually from work): time-out; see also Thesaurus:pause
• (time for playing outside): playtime (UK), recess (US)
• (short holiday): day off, time off; see also Thesaurus:vacation
• (beginning of the morning): crack of dawn; see also Thesaurus:dawn
• (error): See Thesaurus:error

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

Clipping of breakdown (the percussion break of songs chosen by a DJ for use in hip-hop music) and see also breakdancing.

Noun

break (plural breaks)

1. (music) A section of extended repetition of the percussion break to a song, created by a hip-hop DJ as rhythmic dance music.

Derived terms

• Amen break

References

• break at OneLook Dictionary Search
• 2001. The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music: North America. Garland Publishing. Ellen Koskoff (Ed.). Pgs. 694-695.

Anagrams

• Abrek, Baker, Brake, baker, barke, brake

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b??k/

Etymology 1

Borrowed from English break.

Noun

break m (plural breaks)

1. break (pause, holiday)

   Synonym: pause

2. (tennis) break (of serve)

Derived terms

• balle de break

Etymology 2

From earlier break de chasse, from English shooting brake.

Noun

break m (plural breaks)

1. (automotive) estate car, station wagon

   Antonym: berline

References

• “break” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English break.

Noun

break m (invariable)

1. break (intermission or brief suspension of activity)

Interjection

break

1. break! (boxing)

Spanish

Noun

break m (plural breaks)

1. break (pause)
2. (tennis) break

English

Pronunciation

• (Canada) IPA^(key): /?li?.v?/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?li?.v?/,

  Hyphenation: lever

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?l?.v?/, /?li?.v?/

  Hyphenation: le?ver, Hyphenation: lev?er

• Rhymes: -?v?(?), -i?v?(?)
• Homophones: leaver, Lever (for the pronunciation /?li?v?(?)/)

Etymology 1

From Middle English lever, levore, levour, from Old French leveor, leveur (“a lifter, lever (also Old French and French levier)”), from Latin lev?tor (“a lifter”), from lev? (“to raise”); see levant. Compare alleviate, elevate, leaven.

Noun

lever (plural levers)

1. (obsolete, except in generalized senses below) A crowbar.
   • 1613, John Marston, William Barksted, The Insatiate Countess, IV.1:

     My lord, I brained him with a lever my neighbour lent me, and he stood by and cried, ‘Strike home, old boy!’

2. (mechanics) A rigid piece which is capable of turning about one point, or axis (the fulcrum), and in which are two or more other points where forces are applied; — used for transmitting and modifying force and motion.
   1. Specifically, a bar of metal, wood or other rigid substance, used to exert a pressure, or sustain a weight, at one point of its length, by receiving a force or power at a second, and turning at a third on a fixed point called a fulcrum. It is usually named as the first of the six mechanical powers, and is of three kinds, according as either the fulcrum F, the weight W, or the power P, respectively, is situated between the other two, as in the figures.
3. A small such piece to trigger or control a mechanical device (like a button).
4. (mechanics) A bar, as a capstan bar, applied to a rotatory piece to turn it.
5. (mechanics) An arm on a rock shaft, to give motion to the shaft or to obtain motion from it.

Translations

Verb

lever (third-person singular simple present levers, present participle levering, simple past and past participle levered)

1. (transitive) To move with a lever.
2. (figuratively, transitive) To use, operate or move (something) like a lever (physically).
   • 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Vintage International, 2001, Part Two, Chapter 1,

     Suddenly he had levered himself up from the sofa, rocking the lame man violently, and was walking towards the receptionist.

3. (figuratively, transitive) To use (something) like a lever (in an abstract sense).
   • 2001, Joshua Cooper Ramo, “Bagging the Butcher,” Time, 9 April, 2001,^[3]

     He was a man who levered his way from small-time communist hack to political power by tapping into the most potent vein of historical juice in the Balkans: nationalism.

   • 2013, Robert McCrum, “Biographies of the year — review,” The Guardian, 8 December, 2013,^[4]

     Credited with pioneering the detective novel, Collins has attracted many biographers over the years, drawn to his extraordinary life and work in the hope of levering open a new understanding of the Victorian psyche.

4. (chiefly Britain, finance) To increase the share of debt in the capitalization of a business.

Translations

Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Middle English lever, comparative of leve, leef (“dear, beloved, lief”), equivalent to lief +? -er. Related to German lieber (“rather”).

Alternative forms

• liever

Adverb

lever (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Rather.
   • 1530, John Heywood, The Four PP

     for I had lever be without ye / Then have suche besines about ye

   • 1537, William Tyndale et al, "Jonah", in The Byble

     Now therefore take my life from me, for I had lever die then live.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faery Queene

     For lever had I die than see his deadly face.

Translations

Etymology 3

Borrowed from French lever.

Noun

lever (plural levers)

1. (rare) A levee.
   • 1742, Miss Robinson, Mrs. Delany's Letters, II.191:

     We do not appear at Phœbus's Levér.

   • 2011, Tim Blanning, "The reinvention of the night", Times Literary Supplement, 21 Sep 2011:

     Louis XIV’s day began with a lever at 9 and ended (officially) at around midnight.

Further reading

• lever in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• lever in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

References

Anagrams

• Revel, elver, revel

Danish

Etymology 1

From Old Danish liuær, from Old Norse lifr, from Proto-Germanic *libr?, cognate with English liver and German Leber. The Germanic word may be an irregular remodelling of the Proto-Indo-European word for "liver", *yók?r?, cf. Ancient Greek ???? (hêpar) and Latin iecur.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?lew??]

Noun

lever c (singular definite leveren, plural indefinite levere)

1. liver

Inflection

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the main entry.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?le???], [?le?w?]

Verb

lever

1. present of leve

Etymology 3

See the etymology of the main entry.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [le??e???]

Verb

lever or levér

1. imperative of levere

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?le?v?r/
• Hyphenation: le?ver
• Rhymes: -e?v?r

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch l?vere, from Old Dutch *levara, from Proto-Germanic *libr?.

Noun

lever f (plural levers, diminutive levertje n)

1. liver
2. edible animal liver as a dish or culinary ingredient

Derived terms

Descendants

• Afrikaans: lewer
• ? Indonesian: lever

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the main entry.

Verb

lever

1. first-person singular present indicative of leveren
2. imperative of leveren

French

Etymology

From Middle French lever, from Old French lever, from Latin lev?re, present active infinitive of lev? (“to elevate”), from levis (“light, not heavy”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /l?.ve/
• Homophones: levai, levé, levée, levées, levés, levez

Verb

lever

1. (transitive) To raise, lift.

   Antonym: baisser

2. (reflexive) To rise, stand up.

   Antonym: s'abaisser

3. (reflexive) To get up (out of bed).

   Antonyms: se coucher, s'allonger

4. (reflexive, of fog, rain and etc) To clear, lift.

Conjugation

This verb is conjugated mostly like the regular -er verbs (parler and chanter and so on), but the -e- /?/ of the second-to-last syllable becomes -è- /?/ when the next vowel is a silent or schwa -e-. For example, in the third-person singular present indicative, we have il lève rather than *il leve. Other verbs conjugated this way include acheter and mener. Related but distinct conjugations include those of appeler and préférer.

Derived terms

Noun

lever m (plural levers)

1. The act of getting up in the morning.

Further reading

• “lever” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• lèvre

Hungarian

Etymology

le- +? ver

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?l?v?r]
• Hyphenation: le?ver
• Rhymes: -?r

Verb

lever

1. (transitive) to knock down

Conjugation

Derived terms

• leverés

Indonesian

Etymology

From Dutch lever (“liver”), from Middle Dutch l?vere, from Old Dutch *levara, from Proto-Germanic *libr?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?l?v?r]
• Hyphenation: lè?vêr

Noun

lèvêr (first-person possessive leverku, second-person possessive levermu, third-person possessive levernya)

1. liver.

   Synonym: hati

Alternative forms

• liver

Further reading

• “lever” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI) Daring, Jakarta: Badan Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa, Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia, 2016.

Latin

Verb

l?ver

1. first-person singular present passive subjunctive of l?v?

Middle English

Etymology

Comparative of leve (“dear”) of Germanic origin (compare German lieb) or lief.

Adverb

lever

1. Rather.

   For him was lever have at his bed's head
   Twenty bookes, clad in black or red,
   . . . Than robes rich, or fithel, or gay sawtrie. —The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer

   But lever than this worldés good
   She would have wist how that it stood —Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, John Gower.

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French lever.

Verb

lever

1. to lift

Conjugation

• Middle French conjugation varies from one text to another. Hence, the following conjugation should be considered as typical, not as exhaustive.

Descendants

• French: lever

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (lever, supplement)

Norwegian Bokmål

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Old Norse lifr, from Proto-Germanic *libr?, from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (“to smudge, stick”), from *ley- (“to be slimy, be sticky, glide”).

Noun

lever m or f (definite singular leveren or levra, indefinite plural levere or levre or levrer, definite plural leverne or levrene)

1. (anatomy) a liver
2. liver (eaten as food)

Derived terms

• skrumplever

Etymology 2

Verb

lever

1. present tense of leve
2. imperative of levere

References

• “lever” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology 1

From Old Norse lifr, from Proto-Germanic *libr?, from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (“to smudge, stick”), from *ley- (“to be slimy, be sticky, glide”). Akin to English liver.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?le???r/ (example of pronunciation)

Noun

lever f (definite singular levra, indefinite plural levrar or levrer, definite plural levrane or levrene)

1. (anatomy) a liver
2. liver (eaten as food)

Alternative forms

• (superseded) livr

Derived terms

• skrumplever

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /²le???r/ (example of pronunciation)

Verb

lever

1. present of leve

Further reading

• “lever” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Old French

Etymology

From Latin l?v?re, present active infinitive of l?v?.

Verb

lever

1. to lift (up)
2. (reflexive, se level) to get up (get out of bed)

Conjugation

This verb conjugates as a first-group verb ending in -er. The forms that would normally end in *-v, *-vs, *-vt are modified to f, s, t. This verb has a stressed present stem liev distinct from the unstressed stem lev. Old French conjugation varies significantly by date and by region. The following conjugation should be treated as a guide.

Descendants

• Middle French: lever
  • French: lever

Old Swedish

Etymology

From Old Norse hleifr, from Proto-Germanic *hlaibaz.

Noun

l?ver m

1. loaf, bread

Declension

Descendants

• Swedish: lev

Swedish

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Old Norse lifr, from Proto-Germanic *libr?, from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (“to smudge, stick”), from *ley- (“to be slimy, be sticky, glide”).

Noun

lever c

1. (anatomy) a liver

Declension

Etymology 2

Verb

lever

1. present tense of leva.

Further reading

• lever in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• lever in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
• lever in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)