brake

plural brakes · alternative rare break

1. A device used to slow or stop the motion of a wheel, or of a vehicle, usually by friction (although other resistive forces, such as electromagnetic fields or aerodynamic drag, can also be used); also, the controls or apparatus used to engage such a mechanism such as the pedal in a car.First known use 18th c.

   You’re pressing the brakes too hard—try just squeezing them.

   2 more examples

   She slammed the brakes when she saw a child run in front of the car.

   Auxiliaries and ancillaries are comprehensive, and include a Westinghouse motor-driven recriprocating compressor used for locomotive braking and general service air, two rotary exhauster sets for train brakes when hauling passenger or fitted freight trains, and an oil-fired train heating boiler.

   1950 November 28, “Mixed-Traffic Diesel-Electric Locomotives for Ireland”, in Railway Magazine, page 781

   1. The act of braking, of using a brake to slow down a machine or vehicle

      Give the car a quick brake.

   2. engineeringAn 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.
   3. figurativelySomething used to retard or stop some action, process etc.
2. governmentAn ancient engine of war analogous to the crossbow and ballista.
   1. obsoletegovernmentThe winch of a crossbow.First known use 14th–19th c.
3. nauticalThe handle of a pump.

   Synonyms: swipe

4. A baker’s kneading trough.

   You shall kneade[…]first with handes‥lastly with the brake.

   1617, Gervase Markham, Cavalarice the English Horseman

5. A device used to confine or prevent the motion of an animal.
   1. A frame for confining a refractory horse while the smith is shoeing it.

      Synonyms: trave

   2. An enclosure to restrain cattle, horses, etc.

      He was shooting, and the field where the [cock-fighting] ring was verged on the shooting-brake where the rabbits were.

      1868, March 7, The Illustrated London News, number 1472, volume 52, “Law and Police”, page 223

   3. A cart or carriage without a body, used in breaking in horses.
   4. A carriage for transporting shooting parties and their equipment.

      shooting-brake

      2 more examples

      It had been arranged as part of the day’s programme that Mr. Cooke was to drive those who wished to go over the Rise in his new brake.

      1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

      A few moments later they heard the sound of an engine, and a muddy shooting brake appeared on the road behind them.

      1976, Terrance Dicks, chapter 1, in Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster, page 11

6. That part of a carriage, as of a movable battery, or engine, which enables it to turn.

present singular third person brakes · participle present braking · participle past braked · past braked · alternative rare break

1. intransitiveTo operate a brake or brakes.

   Auxiliaries and ancillaries are comprehensive, and include a Westinghouse motor-driven recriprocating compressor used for locomotive braking and general service air, two rotary exhauster sets for train brakes when hauling passenger or fitted freight trains, and an oil-fired train heating boiler.

   1950 November 28, “Mixed-Traffic Diesel-Electric Locomotives for Ireland”, in Railway Magazine, page 781

2. intransitiveTo be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking.

plural brakes

1. Certain ferns, including
   1. countableuncountableAny fern in the genus Pteris.
   2. countableuncountableBracken (Pteridium spp.).First known use 14th c.

plural brakes

1. A thicket, or an area overgrown with briers etc.First known use 15th c.

   He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone.

   1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “(please specify the introduction or canto number, or chapter name)”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC

   3 more examples

   Rounds rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough, / To shelter thee from tempest and from rain.

   1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC

   He halts, and searches with his eyes Among the scatter’d rocks: And now at distance can discern A stirring in a brake of fern […]

   1807, William Wordsworth, Poems, Fidelity

   The bird, with its fellow in the break, drummed, and whirred, and to the misfortune of its species made its plumage seem a prize to them.

   1859, George Meredith, chapter 5, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC

plural brakes

1. A type of machine for bending sheet metal. (See wikipedia.)
2. agricultureA large, heavy harrow for breaking clods of earth after ploughing; a drag.
3. businessA tool used for breaking flax or hemp.First known use 15th c.

   Synonyms: cataract

present singular third person brakes · participle present braking · participle past braked · past braked

1. transitiveTo bruise and crush; to knead.

   The farmer’s son brakes the flax while mother brakes the bread dough

2. transitiveTo pulverise with a harrow.

plural brakes

1. obsoleteA cage.First known use 16th–17th c.
2. historicalA type of torture instrument.First known use 16th c.

   Methods of applying pain were many and ingenious, in particular the ways of twisting, stretching and manipulating the body out of shape, normally falling under the catch-all term of the rack, or the brakes.

   2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 83

1. archaicpastsimple past of break

   And all the people brake off the golden earrings […]

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 32:3

plural Brakes

1. A surname.