breake

See also: breaké

English

Verb

breake (third-person singular simple present breakes, present participle breaking, simple past broke, past participle broken)

1. Obsolete spelling of break.
   • c. 1597 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The History of Henrie the Fourth; […], quarto edition, London: […] P[eter] S[hort] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1598, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

     Diſeaſed nature oftentimes breakes forth, / In ſtrange eruptions, oft the teeming earth / Is with a kind of collicke pincht and vext, / By the impriſoning of vnruly wind / Within her vvombe, vvhich for enlargement ſtriuing / Shakes the old Beldame earth, and topples down / Steeples and moſſegrovvn towers.

   • 1620 (first performance; published 1622), Philip Messenger [i.e., Philip Massinger], Thomas Dekker, The Virgin Martir, a Tragedie. […], London: […] Bernard Alsop for Thomas Iones, →OCLC, Act II, signature [D4], recto:

     VVhat gad flye tickles ſo this Macrinus, / That vp-flinging thy tayle, he breakes thus from me.

   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Heroicall loue causing melancholy. His Pedegree, Power, and Extent.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 3, section 2, member 1, subsection 1, page 356:

     And although ſhe threatned to breake his bowe and arrowes, to clip his wings, and whipped him beſides on the bare buttocks with her pantophle, yet all would not ſerue, […].

Anagrams

• beaker, e-brake, rebake

French

Pronunciation

• Homophones: breakent, breakes

Verb

breake

1. inflection of breaker:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

West Frisian

Noun

breake n (plural breakes)

1. diminutive of brea