Brake
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Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
brake¹
- /bɹeɪk/
Sounds like break · Rhymes with -eɪk
Where it comes from
Origin uncertain; possibly from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German brake (“nose ring, curb, flax brake”), which according to Watkins is related to sense 4 and from Proto-Germanic *brekaną (“to break”).
noun brakes · break
- A device used to slow or stop the motion of a wheel, or of a vehicle, usually by friction (although other resistive forces, such as electromagnetic fields or aerodynamic drag, can also be used); also, the controls or apparatus used to engage such a mechanism such as the pedal in a car. She slammed the brakes when she saw a child run in front of the car.
- The act of braking, of using a brake to slow down a machine or vehicle Give the car a quick brake.
- 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.
- Something used to retard or stop some action, process etc.
- An ancient engine of war analogous to the crossbow and ballista.
- The winch of a crossbow.
- The handle of a pump.
- A baker’s kneading trough. You shall kneade[…]first with handes‥lastly with the brake.
- A frame for confining a refractory horse while the smith is shoeing it.
- An enclosure to restrain cattle, horses, etc. He was shooting, and the field where the [cock-fighting] ring was verged on the shooting-brake where the rabbits were.
- A cart or carriage without a body, used in breaking in horses.
- A carriage for transporting shooting parties and their equipment. shooting-brake
- That part of a carriage, as of a movable battery, or engine, which enables it to turn.
verb brakes · braking · braked · break
- To operate a brake or brakes. Auxiliaries and ancillaries are comprehensive, and include a Westinghouse motor-driven recriprocating compressor used for locomotive braking and general service air, two rotary exhauster sets for train brakes when hauling passenger or fitted freight trains, and an oil-fired train heating boiler.
- To be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking.
brake²
- /bɹeɪk/
Sounds like break · Rhymes with -eɪk
Where it comes from
Apparently a shortened form of bracken. (Compare chick, chicken.)
noun brakes
- Any fern in the genus Pteris.
- Bracken (Pteridium spp.).
brake³
- /bɹeɪk/
Sounds like break · Rhymes with -eɪk
Where it comes from
From Old English *bracu, attested in a plural compound form fearnbraca (“thickets of fern”), probably from Proto-Germanic *brekaną (“to break”) and influenced by sense 2 (“fern”). Compare Middle Low German brake (“stump, branch”).
noun brakes
- A thicket, or an area overgrown with briers etc. Rounds rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough, / To shelter thee from tempest and from rain.
brake⁴
- /bɹeɪk/
Sounds like break · Rhymes with -eɪk
Where it comes from
Late Middle English, from Middle Low German brake, Dutch braak, Old Dutch braeke; possibly related to sense 1.
noun brakes
- A type of machine for bending sheet metal. (See wikipedia.)
- A large, heavy harrow for breaking clods of earth after ploughing; a drag.
- A tool used for breaking flax or hemp.
verb brakes · braking · braked
- To bruise and crush; to knead. The farmer’s son brakes the flax while mother brakes the bread dough
- To pulverise with a harrow.
brake⁵
- /bɹeɪk/
Sounds like break · Rhymes with -eɪk
Where it comes from
Uncertain.
noun brakes
- A cage.
- A type of torture instrument. Methods of applying pain were many and ingenious, in particular the ways of twisting, stretching and manipulating the body out of shape, normally falling under the catch-all term of the rack, or the brakes.
brake⁶
- /bɹeɪk/
Sounds like break · Rhymes with -eɪk
Where it comes from
Inflected forms.
verb
- simple past of break And all the people brake off the golden earrings […]
Brake⁷
proper noun Brakes
- A surname.
