firebreak

See also: fire break

English

(#1) A firebreak in Spain

Alternative forms

• fire break

Etymology

fire +‎ break

Noun

firebreak (plural firebreaks)

1. An area cleared of all flammable material to prevent a fire from spreading across it.

   The firefighters used a bulldozer to clear a firebreak in the forest to try to contain the forest fire.

2. (figurative) Any separating barrier.
   • 1984, Dietrich Schroeer, Science, Technology and the Nuclear Arms Race, page 293:

     That policy could consist of a statement that the declaring nation would not be the first to use nuclear weapons. This would strengthen the firebreak between the use of conventional and nuclear weapons.

   • 2012, Daniel Levine, Recovering International Relations: The Promise of Sustainable Critique, page 112:

     First, it serves to demonstrate that the practice of sustainable critique […] need not be impossibly philosophically rarefied […] Second, it serves as a firebreak against the unrelieved negativity that, it is sometimes charged, follows from Adorno's practices of reflexivity.

Synonyms

• firetrail (Australia)

Translations

area cleared of flammable material to prevent a fire from spreading

• Catalan: tallafoc m
• Danish: brandbælte n
• Finnish: palokuja, palolinja, palokatu
• Galician: devasa (gl) f, cortalumes m
• German: Brandschneise f
• Korean: 방화선(防火線) (ko) (banghwaseon)
• Portuguese: aceiro (pt) m, atalhada (pt) f
• Spanish: cortafuegos (es) m, cortafuego m
• Welsh: strimyn atal tân m

See also

• firebreak on Wikipedia.Wikipedia