Lexic.us

Definition of Brake

1. Noun. A restraint used to slow or stop a vehicle.

2. Verb. Stop travelling by applying a brake. "These cars won't brake "; "We had to brake suddenly when a chicken crossed the road"

3. Noun. Any of various ferns of the genus Pteris having pinnately compound leaves and including several popular houseplants.

4. Verb. Cause to stop by applying the brakes. "Brake the car before you go into a curve"

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

brainworker brainy braird brairded brairding brairds braise braised braises braising

brait braits braize braizes brak brake (current term) brake band brake bias brake cylinder brake disk

brake drum brake failure brake horsepower brake horsepowers brake light brake lining brake mean effective pressure brake noodle brake pad

Literary usage of Brake

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge (1918)
"To obviate this condition, the freight empty and load brake was devised, ... Passenger brake Equipment.—About the year 1900, a speed of 60 miles per hour ..."

2. Dyke's Automobile and Gasoline Engine Encyclopedia by Andrew Lee Dyke (1920)
"The brake shoe is a band that may either be drawn around the outside of the ... The external type of brake is usually of the double acting band brake type ..."

3. The Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General by Thomas Spencer Baynes (1888)
"In the event of a train being parted and the brake-pipe severed, the escape of air reduces the pressure in the pipe, ana the brakes are instantly ..."

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