windbreak

plural windbreaks · alternative wind-break · alternative wind break

1. agricultureA hedge, fence or row of trees positioned to reduce wind damage to crops.
2. A sheet or stack of material used to protect people or fire from wind.

   I built my windbreak on a second-story wooden deck, as you can see above, but it would work just as well at ground level.

   June 1964, Darrell Huff, Sun-Catching Windbreak Popular Science, Bonnier Corporation, page 112

   2 more examples

   Although Birdibil was warm in his family wungkurr or windbreak that night, lying next to a crackling fire and covered with some paperbark blankets (kawan), he had little sleep.

   2000, Darrell Huff, Settlement: A History Of Australian Indigenous Housing, Aboriginal Studies Press, page 19

   A wide range of materials was used for windbreaks, including rigid bark sheets inserted in sand, piles of grass or foliage, and stone walls.

   2008, Paul Memmott, Gunyah, Goondie + Wurley: The Aboriginal Architecture of Australia, University of Queensland Press, page 62

3. The act of breaking wind; flatulence.

   (see title)

   1995, Terry Bolin, Rosemary Stanton, Wind Breaks: Coming to Terms with Flatulence

   3 more examples

   Another of Roy's room-clearing wind breaks snapped my head back.

   1996, Matt Condon, The Lulu Magnet

   (chapter title for chapter on flatulence)

   2010, Ralph Keyes, “'Windbreaks'”, in Unmentionables

   (see chapter title)

   2012, Bill Tidy, Paul G. Bahn, “Wind-Breaks— Or Gone With The Wind”, in Disgraceful Archaeology