breaking

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɹeɪkɪŋ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Homophone: braking
• Rhymes: -eɪkɪŋ

Verb

breaking

1. present participle and gerund of break

Noun

breaking (countable and uncountable, plural breakings)

1. The act by which something is broken.
   • 2009, John Renard, Tales of God's Friends: Islamic Hagiography in Translation, page 53:

     We, on the other hand, do not reject the occurrence of breakings of the natural order of things that occur in connection with a prescribed proclamation […]

2. (linguistics) A change of a vowel to a diphthong.
3. (music) A form of ornamentation in which groups of short notes are used instead of long ones.
4. Breakdancing.
   • 2014, Karen Schupp, Studying Dance: A Guide for Campus and Beyond, page 48:

     The urban dance genre includes breaking, waacking, and house dancing, among others.

5. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (colloquial, informal) Breaking news.
   • 2022 September 8, “BREAKING: Queen Elizabeth II, a beacon of stability after more than 70 years on the British throne, dies at 96, Buckingham Palace announces.”, in CNN on Twitter‎^[1]:

Translations

in linguistics: vowel breaking

• German: Brechung (de) f

Derived terms

• backbreaking
• breaking and entering
• breaking change
• breakingly
• breaking news
• breaking news
• breaking of the waters
• codebreaking
• gamebreaking
• groundbreaking
• heartbreaking
• homebreaking
• horsebreaking
• housebreaking
• icebreaking
• inbreaking
• jawbreaking
• late-breaking
• lawbreaking
• microbreaking
• non-breaking
• nonbreaking
• oathbreaking
• outbreaking
• pairbreaking
• pathbreaking
• peacebreaking
• record-breaking
• rulebreaking
• safebreaking
• sequence breaking
• shipbreaking
• shopbreaking
• strike breaking
• strikebreaking
• tiebreaking
• unbreaking
• windbreaking
• worldbreaking

 

Anagrams

• rebaking