BREAKDOWN • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Breakdown

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/brˈeɪkdˌaʊn/ Listen

noun

Breakdown n.

The act or result of breaking down, as of a carriage; downfall.

(a)

A noisy, rapid, shuffling dance engaged in competitively by a number of persons or pairs in succession, as among the colored people of the Southern United States, and so called, perhaps, because the exercise is continued until most of those who take part in it break down.

(b)

Any rude, noisy dance performed by shuffling the feet, usually by one person at a time. (U.S.) "Don't clear out when the quadrilles are over, for we are going to have a breakdown to wind up with."

See images of 'Breakdown'

Etymology of 'Breakdown'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Breakdown" Quotes from Famous Books

... and her threat to build a railroad from Berlin to Bagdad and tap the riches of the East, led the British to form alliances with their traditional enemies—the French and the Russians. Russia, after the breakdown of Czarism in 1917, dropped out of the Entente, and the United States took her place among the Allies of the British Empire. During the struggle France was reduced to a mere shell of her former power. The War of ...

— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... breakdown is in dealing with the new relations that arise from the mutualism, the interdependence of our time. Every new social relation begets a new type of wrongdoing—of sin, to use an old-fashioned word—and many years always elapse before society is able to turn this sin into ...

— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... the surprises of the War was the complete breakdown of international socialism. Not only socialists, but those of us who had been thoughtfully watching the movement from without, had come to believe that the measure of consciousness of international brotherhood it had developed in the artisan groups of many lands, would be ...

— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs

... Aylmer and Edith had kept it to themselves. Mrs Ottley listened imperturbably to Edith's story, a somewhat incoherent concoction, but told with dash and decision, that Bruce had been ordered away for a sea-voyage for fear of a nervous breakdown. She cried a little, said nothing, kissed Edith more than usual, and took the children away for longer walks and drives. With a mother's flashlight of intuition she felt at once certain there was something wrong, but she didn't wish to probe the subject. Her confidence in Edith reached the ...

— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson

... their trudge through those endless trees, with Fear for a companion. Even the porters, who had been told nothing, seemed more afraid than usual, though whether this was because they "smell rat," as Jeekie called it, or owing to the progressive breakdown of their nervous systems, Alan did not know. About midday they stopped to eat because the men were too tired to walk further without rest. For an hour or more they had been looking for a comparatively open place, but as it chanced could find none, ...

— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

More quotes...