Definition of Brake
1. Verb. Stop travelling by applying a brake. "These cars won't brake "; "We had to brake suddenly when a chicken crossed the road"
2. Noun. A restraint used to slow or stop a vehicle.
3. Verb. Cause to stop by applying the brakes. "Brake the car before you go into a curve"
Category relationships: DrivingGeneric synonyms: StopSpecialized synonyms: Skid 4. Noun. Any of various ferns of the genus Pteris having pinnately compound leaves and including several popular houseplants.
5. Noun. Large coarse fern often several feet high; essentially weed ferns; cosmopolitan.
6. Noun. An area thickly overgrown usually with one kind of plant.
7. Noun. Anything that slows or hinders a process. "New legislation will put the brakes on spending"
Definition of Brake
1. n. A fern of the genus Pteris, esp. the P. aquilina, common in almost all countries. It has solitary stems dividing into three principal branches. Less properly: Any fern.
2. n. An instrument or machine to break or bruise the woody part of flax or hemp so that it may be separated from the fiber.
Definition of Brake
1. Noun. A device used to slow or stop a vehicle, by friction; often installed on the wheels, then often in the plural. ¹
2. Noun. Something that slows or stops an action ¹
3. Noun. (nautical) The handle, manned by up to six men, by which a ship's pump was worked ¹
4. Noun. A type of machine for bending sheet metal. (See wikipedia.) ¹
5. Noun. (obsolete) A specific torture instrument ¹
6. Verb. (intransitive) To operate (a) brake(s). ¹
7. Verb. (intransitive) To be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking. ¹
8. Verb. (transitive) To bruise and crush; to knead ¹
9. Verb. (transitive) To pulverise with a harrow ¹
10. Noun. A fern type, bracken ¹
11. Noun. A canebreak ¹
12. Noun. A thicket, or an area overgrown with briers etc. ¹
13. Noun. A four-wheeled carriage type ¹
14. Verb. (archaic) (past of break) ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Definition of Brake
1. to slow down or stop [v BRAKED, BRAKING, BRAKES]
Medical Definition of Brake
1.
1. A fern of the genus Pteris, especially. The P. Aquilina, common in almost all countries. It has solitary stems dividing into three principal branches. Less properly: Any fern.
2. A thicket; a place overgrown with shrubs and brambles, with undergrowth and ferns, or with canes. "Rounds rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough, To shelter thee from tempest and from rain." (Shak) "He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone." (Sir W. Scott) Cane brake, a thicket of canes. See Canebrake.
Origin: OE. Brake fern; cf. AS. Bracce fern, LG. Brake willow bush, Da. Bregne fern, G. Brach fallow; prob. Orig. The growth on rough, broken ground, fr. The root of E. Break. See Break, cf. Bracken, and 2d Brake.
1. An instrument or machine to break or bruise the woody part of flax or hemp so that it may be separated from the fibre.
2. An extended handle by means of which a number of men can unite in working a pump, as in a fire engine.
3. A baker's kneading though.
4. A sharp bit or snaffle. "Pampered jades . . . Which need nor break nor bit." (Gascoigne)
5. A frame for confining a refractory horse while the smith is shoeing him; also, an inclosure to restrain cattle, horses, etc. "A horse . . . Which Philip had bought . . . And because of his fierceness kept him within a brake of iron bars." (J. Brende)
6. That part of a carriage, as of a movable battery, or engine, which enables it to turn.
7. An ancient engine of war analogous to the crossbow and ballista.
8. A large, heavy harrow for breaking clods after plowing; a drag.
9. A piece of mechanism for retarding or stopping motion by friction, as of a carriage or railway car, by the pressure of rubbers against the wheels, or of clogs or ratchets against the track or roadway, or of a pivoted lever against a wheel or drum in a machine.
10. An apparatus for testing the power of a steam engine, or other motor, by weighing the amount of friction that the motor will overcome; a friction brake.
11. A cart or carriage without a body, used in breaking in horses.
12. An ancient instrument of torture. Air brake. See Air brake, in the Vocabulary. Brake beam or Brake bar, the beam that connects the brake blocks of opposite wheels. Brake block. The part of a brake holding the brake shoe. A brake shoe. Brake shoe or Brake rubber, the part of a brake against which the wheel rubs. Brake wheel, a wheel on the platform or top of a car by which brakes are operated. Continuous brake . See Continuous.
Origin: OE. Brake; cf. LG. Brake an instrument for breaking flax, G. Breche, fr. The root of E. Break. See Break, and cf. Breach.
Source: Websters Dictionary
(01 Mar 1998)
Lexicographical Neighbors of Brake
Other Resources:
Basque