different between breakaway vs split

English

Etymology

break +? away

Pronunciation

Adjective

breakaway (not comparable)

1. Having broken away from a larger unit.
   • 1946, William Brown, Hansard, 19 November, 1946, Trade Unions Closed Shop, [1]

     Nor is it true, although it has been suggested as true, that I am in favour of breakaway or splinter unions—

   • 1997, Ted Hughes, "Actaeon" in Tales from Ovid, London: Faber & Faber, p. 111, lines 144-147,

     As Actaeon turned, Melanchaetes / The ringleader of this breakaway trio / Grabbed a rear ankle / In the trap of his jaws.

   • 2016, "Iain Duncan Smith claims 'black ops' bid to 'denigrate' Leadsom," BBC News, 10 July, 2016, [2]

     […] the Sunday Times said some 20 MPs are ready to form a breakaway party if Mrs Leadsom is elected as leader over Home Secretary Theresa May […]

   The breakaway republic is slowly establishing order and civil society.

2. Capable of breaking off without damaging the larger structure.
   • 1954, "The Week in Review," Time, 30 August, 1954, [3]

     In Hollywood, rehearsing for his show, Red Skelton plunged headlong into a "breakaway" door. It didn't break, and Red was hospitalized with concussion and a mild case of shock.

   a breakaway wall

3. (ice hockey) Occurring during or as a result of a breakaway (see Noun)
   • 2016, Scott Feschuk, "Counting down the most annoying in video review, by sport," sportsnet.ca, 10 July, 2016, [4]

     In a league starved for scoring, the challenge ensures that some super-sweet breakaway goals will be overturned because a dude was three microns offside.

4. (entertainment industry) Enjoying rapid popular success.
   • 1976, "Sass and Class," Time, 1 November, 1976, [5]

     The New York quintet call themselves Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, and their RCA debut LP is this season's breakaway disco act.

   • 1996, Bill Carter, "So Many New Shows, but Not One Hit," The New York Times, 14 November, 1996, [6]

     In that season, NBC added another first-year breakaway hit, Friends.

   • 2016, Chris Riotta, "Rihanna's 'Anti' Has Extensive Alternative Music Career," mic.com, 11 February, 2016, [7]

     When Rihanna released her rebellious breakaway album Anti, it marked a definitive turning point in the singer's career.

Translations

Noun

breakaway (plural breakaways)

1. The act of breaking away from something.
   • 1932, Alan Lennox-Boyd, Hansard, 10 May, 1932, Finance Bill, [8]

     […] this Finance Bill represents a definite breakaway from the old practice of mass bribing, vote catching, and political Finance Bills which we were in grave danger of establishing as a permanent part of our national activities.

   • 1954, C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy, Collins, 1998, Chapter 11,

     If the horse had been any good—or if he had known how to get any good out of the horse—he would have risked everything on a breakaway and a wild gallop.

   • 1992, Michael S. Serrill, "Back On Track," Time, 21 December, 1992, [9]

     During all that time, the French-speaking province of Quebec demanded additional powers to preserve its language and unique culture, while separatist pressure, generated by the Parti Quebecois, threatened breakaway if the demands were frustrated.

   • 2011, Jeffrey Weeks, The Languages of Sexuality, Routledge, p. 158,

     […] the adoption of the veil by Muslim women in West European countries is often justified as a mark of their autonomy, a breakaway from the sexualizing influences of Western culture.

2. (cycling) A group of riders which has gone ahead of the peloton.
   • 2012, July 15. Richard Williams in Guardian Unlimited, Tour de France 2012: Carpet tacks cannot force Bradley Wiggins off track

     The summit of the climb came 38km from the end of stage 14, which began in Limoux and ended in Foix in the foothills of the Pyrenees, and the incident occurred as the peloton emerged into the light and passed under the banner at the top, a quarter of an hour behind a five-man breakaway.

3. (ice hockey) A situation in the game where one or more players of a team attack towards the goal of the other team without having any defenders in front of them.
   • 2015, Eric MacKenzie, "Canucks fall 2-1 to Oilers in OT," vancouver24hrs.ca, 18 October, 2015, [10]

     With the game tied 1-1 early in the third, Henrik got free on a breakaway and was stopped by Oilers goalie Anders Nilsson […]

4. (boxing) The act of getting away from one's opponent; the separation of the boxers after a spell of infighting.
   • 2011, Colleen Aycock and Mark Scott (eds.), The First Black Boxing Champions: Essays on Fighters of the 1800s to the 1920s, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Appendix: The Great Fights, George Dixon vs. Jack Skelly (September 6, 1892), p. 262,

     The gong sounded almost immediately after the breakaway.

5. (Australia) A stampede of animals.
6. (Australia) An animal that breaks away from a herd.
   • 1893, The Argus, 29 April, 1893, p. 4, col. 4, cited in Edward Ellis Morris, Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages, 1898, [11]

     The smartest stock horse that ever brought his rider up within whip distance of a breakaway or dodged the horns of a sulky beast, took the chance.

7. (Australia, geography) An eroding steep slope on the edge of a plateau.
8. A particular yo-yo trick [12].
   • 1958, "Scoreboard," Time, 5 August, 1958, [13]

     After watching some older kids try out for the New York City Parks Department's yo-yo championship, Stephen Awerman, an eleven-year-old from Jamaica, L.I., decided that he could hold his own with the big boys. He spun his yo-yo through the required figures—spinner, walking-the-dog, breakaway […] —then unreeled 312 loop-the-loops to latch onto the title.

9. A swing dance in which the leader occasionally swings the follower out into an open position.

Translations

See also

• escape

Derived terms

• breakaway neckline
• breakaway suspenders

English

Etymology

Attested since about 1567, from Middle Dutch splitten (“to split”) and/or Middle Low German splitten (“to split”), from Old Saxon *spl?tan, both intensive forms related to Proto-West Germanic *spl?tan, from Proto-Germanic *spl?tan? (whence Danish splitte, Low German splieten, German spleißen), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pley- (“to split, splice”).

Compare Old English speld (“splinter”), Old High German spaltan (“to split”), Old Irish sliss (“splinter”), Lithuanian spaliai (“flax sheaves”), Czech p?l (“half”), Old Church Slavonic ???-??????? (ras-plitati, “to cleave, split”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: spl?t, IPA^(key): /spl?t/

Adjective

split (not comparable)

1. Divided.

   Republicans appear split on the centerpiece of Mr. Obama's economic recovery plan.
2. (algebra, of a short exact sequence) Having the middle group equal to the direct product of the others.
3. (of coffee) Comprising half decaffeinated and half caffeinated espresso.
4. (stock exchange, of an order, sale, etc.) Divided so as to be done or executed part at one time or price and part at another time or price.
5. (stock exchange, historical, of quotations) Given in sixteenths rather than eighths.

   10+³?₁₆ is a split quotation.

6. (London stock exchange) Designating ordinary stock that has been divided into preferred ordinary and deferred ordinary.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

split (plural splits)

1. A crack or longitudinal fissure.
2. A breach or separation, as in a political party; a division.
3. A piece that is split off, or made thin, by splitting; a splinter; a fragment.
4. (leather manufacture) One of the sections of a skin made by dividing it into two or more thicknesses.
5. (gymnastics, cheerleading, dance, usually in the phrase "to do the splits") A maneuver of spreading or sliding the feet apart until the legs are flat on the floor 180 degrees apart, either sideways to the body or with one leg in front and one behind, thus lowering the body completely to the floor in an upright position.
6. (bodybuilding) A workout routine as seen by its distribution of muscle groups or the extent and manner they are targetted in a microcycle.

   Hyponym: bro split

7. (baseball, slang) A split-finger fastball.

   He’s got a nasty split.

8. (bowling) A result of a first throw that leaves two or more pins standing with one or more pins between them knocked down.
9. A split shot or split stroke.
10. A dessert or confection resembling a banana split.
11. A unit of measure used for champagne or other spirits: 18.75 centiliters or one quarter of a standard 75-centiliter bottle. Commercially comparable to ¹?₂₀ (US) gallon, which is ¹?₂ of a fifth.
12. A bottle of wine containing 37.5 centiliters, half the volume of a standard 75-centiliter bottle; a demi.
13. (athletics) The elapsed time at specific intermediate points in a race.

    In the 3000 m race, his 800 m split was 1:45.32

14. (video games) The elapsed time at specific intermediate points in a speedrun.
15. (construction) A tear resulting from tensile stresses.
16. (gambling) A division of a stake happening when two cards of the kind on which the stake is laid are dealt in the same turn.
17. (music) A recording containing songs by multiple artists.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

split (third-person singular simple present splits, present participle splitting, simple past and past participle split)

1. (transitive, ergative, of something solid) To divide fully or partly along a more or less straight line.

   Synonym: cleave

   • 1660, Robert Boyle, New Experiments Physico-Mechanical: Touching the Spring of the Air and their Effects

     a huge vessel of exceeding hard marble split asunder by congealed water
2. (intransitive, of something solid, particularly wood) To break along the grain fully or partly along a more or less straight line.
3. (transitive) To share; to divide.
4. (transitive, intransitive, slang) To leave.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:leave

5. (intransitive, of a couple) To separate.

   Synonyms: break up, split up

6. (transitive, intransitive) To (cause to) break up; to throw into discord.

   Accusations of bribery split the party just before the election.

7. (algebra, transitive and intransitive, acts on a polynomial) To factor into linear factors.
   • 2007, John M. Howie, Fields and Galois Theory, Springer, page 103,

     In the first case ${\displaystyle X^{2}-2}$, the minimum polynomial of ${\displaystyle {\sqrt {2}}}$, splits completely over ${\displaystyle \mathbb {Q} ({\sqrt {2}})}$; in the second case we see that ${\displaystyle X^{3}-2}$, the minimum polynomial of ${\displaystyle 3{\sqrt {2}}}$, does not split completely over ${\displaystyle \mathbb {Q} (3{\sqrt {2}})}$.

8. To be broken; to be dashed to pieces.
9. (intransitive) To burst out laughing.
10. (intransitive, slang, dated) To divulge a secret; to betray confidence; to peach.

    • " […] I split, and tell all […] "

11. (sports, especially baseball) For both teams involved in a doubleheader to win one game each and lose another.

12. (intransitive, politics) To vote for candidates of opposite parties.

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• slipt, spilt, stilp

Danish

Verb

split

1. imperative of splitte

Spanish

Etymology

From English splits.

Noun

split m (uncountable)

1. splits

Swedish

Etymology

From Old Swedish split, borrowed from Middle Low German spliten (“to split”)

Noun

split n or c

1. discord, strife, dissension

   Det blir avunden och splitet, som blir Sveriges fördärv.

   It is the envy and the strife, that will be Sweden's demise.

2. a split (of shares in a company)
3. a side split, a straddle split (in gymnastics)

Declension

See also

• aktiesplit
• spagat
• splits
• splitt

Anagrams

• pilts