brake

Give the car a quick brake.

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.

The act of braking, of using a brake to slow down a machine or vehicle

(engineering) 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.

(figuratively) Something used to retard or stop some action, process etc.

She slammed the brakes when she saw a child run in front of the car.

You’re pressing the brakes too hard—try just squeezing them.

(military) An ancient engine of war analogous to the crossbow and ballista.

(chiefly nautical) The handle of a pump.

You shall kneade[…]first with handes‥lastly with the brake.

1617, Gervase Markham, Cavalarice the English Horseman:

A device used to confine or prevent the motion of an animal.

A frame for confining a refractory horse while the smith is shoeing him.

He was shooting, and the field where the [cock-fighting] ring was verged on the shooting-brake where the rabbits were.

1868, March 7, The Illustrated London News, number 1472, volume 52, “Law and Police”, page 223

An enclosure to restrain cattle, horses, etc.

A cart or carriage without a body, used in breaking in horses.ᵂ

It had been arranged as part of the day’s programme that Mr. Cooke was to drive those who wished to go over the Rise in his new brake.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

A few moments later they heard the sound of an engine, and a muddy shooting brake appeared on the road behind them.

1976, Terrance Dicks, chapter 1, in Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster, page 11:

A carriage for transporting shooting parties and their equipment.ᵂ

That part of a carriage, as of a movable battery, or engine, which enables it to turn.

→ Japanese: ブレーキ (burēki)

→ Korean: 브레이크 (beureikeu)

→ Portuguese: breque

→ Swahili: breki

→ Thai: เบรก (brèek)

→ Welsh: brêc

逼力

bik¹⁻⁶ lik⁶⁻¹

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”).


brake

(intransitive) To operate a brake or brakes.

(intransitive) To be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking.

en-verb

brake (third-person singular simple present brakes, present participle braking, simple past and past participle braked)

brakes (present singular third-person)
braking (participle present)
braked (participle past)
braked (past)

accelerate

antonym(s) of “to be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking”


brake

Apparently a shortened form of bracken. (Compare chick, chicken.)


brake

Rounds rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough, / To shelter thee from tempest and from rain.

1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC:

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone.

1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “(please specify the introduction or canto number, or chapter name)”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC:

He halts, and searches with his eyes
Among the scatter’d rocks:
And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern […]

1807, William Wordsworth, Poems, Fidelity:

The bird, with its fellow in the break, drummed, and whirred, and to the misfortune of its species made its plumage seem a prize to them.

1859, George Meredith, chapter 5, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC:

A thicket, or an area overgrown with briers etc.

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”).


brake

(textiles) A tool used for breaking flax or hemp.

A type of machine for bending sheet metal. (See wikipedia.)

A large, heavy harrow for breaking clods after ploughing; a drag.

мъначка

tool for crushing and beating flax or hemp

Late Middle English, from Middle Low German brake, Dutch braak, Old Dutch braeke; possibly related to sense 1.


brake

The farmer’s son brakes the flax while mother brakes the bread dough

(transitive) To bruise and crush; to knead.

(transitive) To pulverise with a harrow.

bracken

Westphalia and elsewhere from Low German


brake

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.

2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 83:

(now historical) A type of torture instrument.


brake

And all the people brake off the golden earrings […]

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 32:3: