breakaway

1. not comparableHaving broken away from a larger unit.

   The breakaway republic is slowly establishing order and civil society.

   4 more examples

   1946, William Brown, Hansard, 19 November, 1946, Trade Unions Closed Shop, https://web.archive.org/web/20190212095659/https://www.hansard-corpus.org/ Nor is it true, although it has been suggested as true, that I am in favour of breakaway or splinter unions

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

   1997, Ted Hughes, “Actaeon”, in Tales from Ovid, London: Faber & Faber, page 111, lines 144–147

   […] 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 […]

   2016 July 10, “Iain Duncan Smith claims 'black ops' bid to 'denigrate' Leadsom”, in BBC News

   The breakaway party espouses land expropriation without compensation and sweeping state nationalism, including nationalizing the Reserve Bank.

   2024 June 5, Sarah Dean and David McKenzie, “Jacob Zuma has made a dramatic comeback in South Africa’s elections. Will he have the last laugh over Ramaphosa?”, in CNN

2. not comparableCapable of breaking off without damaging the larger structure.

   a breakaway wall

   1 more example

   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.

   1954 August 30, “The Week in Review”, in Time

3. not comparablehobbiesOccurring during or as a result of a breakaway (see Noun)

   1 more example

   2016, Scott Feschuk, "Counting down the most annoying in video review, by sport," sportsnet.ca, 10 July, 2016, http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/counting-annoying-video-review-sport/ 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. not comparableeconomicsEnjoying rapid popular success.

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

   1996 November 14, Bill Carter, “So Many New Shows, but Not One Hit”, in The New York Times

   2 more examples

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

   1976 November 1, “Sass and Class”, in Time

   2016, Chris Riotta, "Rihanna's 'Anti' Has Extensive Alternative Music Career," mic.com, 11 February, 2016, https://mic.com/articles/134964/who-is-sza-artist-featured-on-rihanna-s-anti-has-extensive-alternative-music-career#.7Jn5cfh5u When Rihanna released her rebellious breakaway album Anti, it marked a definitive turning point in the singer's career.

plural breakaways

1. The act of breaking away from something.

   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.

   1954, C. S. Lewis, chapter 11, in The Horse and His Boy, Collins, published 1998

   4 more examples

   1932, Alan Lennox-Boyd, Hansard, 10 May, 1932, Finance Bill, https://web.archive.org/web/20190212095659/https://www.hansard-corpus.org/ […] 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.

   Following a breakaway of the test train near Huntingdon during final trials, the start of the London-Newcastle-Edinburgh "Roadrailer" service scheduled for August 19 was postponed.

   1963 September, Modern Railways, page 146

   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.

   1992 December 21, Michael S. Serrill, “Back On Track”, in Time

   […] 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.

   2011, Jeffrey Weeks, The Languages of Sexuality, Routledge, page 158

2. cycle racingA group of riders which has gone ahead of the peloton.

   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.

   2012 July 15, Richard Williams, Tour de France 2012: Carpet tacks cannot force Bradley Wiggins off track, Guardian Unlimited

3. hobbiesA 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.

   1 more example

   2015, Eric MacKenzie, "Canucks fall 2-1 to Oilers in OT," vancouver24hrs.ca, 18 October, 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20151020145050/http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2015/10/19/canucks-fall-2-1-to-oilers-in-ot 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. boxingThe 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. AustraliaA stampede of animals.
6. AustraliaAn animal that breaks away from a herd.

   1 more example

   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, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks09/0900231.txt 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. AustraliageographyAn eroding steep slope on the edge of a plateau; an escarpment.
8. AustraliaA channel of floodwater that has burst from its usual course; or the track or channel eroded by the water.First known use 19th c.

   He was forced to slow to a walking pace in order to negotiate a rack of deep breakaways.

   2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 353

9. A particular yo-yo trick http://yoyo.wikia.com/wiki/Breakaway.

   1 more example

   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.

   1958 August 5, “Scoreboard”, in Time

10. A swing dance in which the leader occasionally swings the follower out into an open position.
11. entertainmentAn item of scenery designed to be broken or destroyed during the performance.

    EFFECT […] This usually refers to special effects such as flash pots, torches, crashes, breakaways, etc.

    1980, Robert Anderson, Theatre Talk, page 19