brake
pronunciation
How to pronounce brake in British English:
UK [breɪk]
How to pronounce brake in American English:
US [breɪk]
-
- Noun:
- a restraint used to slow or stop a vehicle
- any of various ferns of the genus Pteris having pinnately compound leaves and including several popular houseplants
- large coarse fern often several feet high; essentially weed ferns; cosmopolitan
- an area thickly overgrown usually with one kind of plant
-
- Verb:
- stop travelling by applying a brake
- cause to stop by applying the brakes
Word Origin
- brake
- brake: There are two distinct words brake in English. By far the older is that meaning ‘overgrown area, thicket’ [OE]. Its source is uncertain, but it has been speculated that it is ultimately related to break, its original meaning perhaps having been something like ‘broken wood’. Brake ‘decelerating mechanism’ [15] meant ‘bridle’ for stopping a horse’s progress, and may have been borrowed from Middle Dutch braeke, a word which was used for a wide variety of crushing implements but also apparently for a ring put through the nose of a draught ox. There may well be some ultimate connection with break here too.=> break
- brake (n.1)
- mid-15c., "instrument for crushing or pounding," from Middle Dutch braeke "flax brake," from breken "to break" (see break (v.)). The word was applied to many crushing implements and to the ring through the nose of a draught ox. It was influenced in sense by Old French brac, a form of bras "an arm," thus "a lever or handle," which was being used in English from late 14c., and applied to "a bridle or curb" from early 15c. One or the other or both took up the main modern meaning of "stopping device for a wheel," first attested 1772.
- brake (n.2)
- kind of fern, early 14c.; see bracken.
- brake (v.)
- "to apply a brake to a wheel," 1868, from brake (n.1). Earlier, "to beat flax" (late 14c.). Related: Braked; braking.
Example
- 1. The auto brake can automatically start braking after landing .
- 2. Rules and regulations are often an even bigger brake on productivity .
- 3. With air brake 2.0 , westinghouse turned things around .
- 4. In the final seconds , pan pulled a hand-operated emergency brake .
- 5. In the west , slow growth and stagnant incomes have been a brake on price increases .