shipbreach
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English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English schipbreche, schipbrüche, from Old English scipbryċe, scipbroc, scipġebroc (“shipwreck; that which washes ashore from shipwreck, wreckage”, literally “ship-breaking”), equivalent to ship + breach. Cognate with Scots schipbrek (“shipwreck”), Dutch schipbreuk (“shipwreck”), German Schiffbruch (“shipwreck”).
Noun
[edit]shipbreach (uncountable)
- (archaic) Shipwreck.
- 1893, Bartholomew Anglicus [i.e., Bartholomaeus Anglicus], translated by John Trevisa, edited by Robert Steele, Medieval Lore: An Epitome of the Science, Geography, Animal and Plant Folk-lore and Myth of the Middle Age, London: Elliot Stock, page 93:
- Also in shipbreach men flee to a board, and are oft saved in peril.
- 1999, Robert M. Torrance, Robert M. Torrance:
- [...] and the third with an harp, and they please so shipmen, with likeness of song, that they draw them to peril and to shipbreach [shipwreck], but the sooth [truth] is, that they were strong [w]hores, that drew men that passed by them to poverty and to mischief.