# brake
## English
### Pronunciation

* enPR: brāk, IPA: /bɹeɪk/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -eɪk
* Homophone: break

### Etymology 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”).

#### Alternative forms

* break (rare)

#### Noun

brake (plural brakes)
* 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. [from 18th c.]
    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.
** 1950 November, “Mixed-Traffic Diesel-Electric Locomotives for Ireland”, in Railway Magazine, page 781:Auxiliaries and ancillaries are comprehensive, and include a Westinghouse motor-driven recriprocating compressor used for locomotive braking and general service air, two rotary exhauster sets for train brakes when hauling passenger or fitted freight trains, and an oil-fired train heating boiler.
** The act of braking, of using a brake to slow down a machine or vehicle
    Give the car a quick brake.
** (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.
* (military) An ancient engine of war analogous to the crossbow and ballista.
** (obsolete) The winch of a crossbow. [14th–19th c.]
* (chiefly nautical) The handle of a pump.
    Synonym: swipe
* A baker’s kneading trough.
** 1617, Gervase Markham, Cavalarice the English Horseman:You shall kneade […] first with handes‥lastly with the brake.
* 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.
** An enclosure to restrain cattle, horses, etc.
*** 1868, March 7, The Illustrated London News, number 1472, volume 52, “Law and Police”, page 223:
    He was shooting, and the field where the [cock-fighting] ring was verged on the shooting-brake where the rabbits were.
** A cart or carriage without a body, used in breaking in horses.
** A carriage for transporting shooting parties and their equipment.
*** 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: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.
*** 1976, Terrance Dicks, chapter 1, in Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster, page 11:A few moments later they heard the sound of an engine, and a muddy shooting brake appeared on the road behind them.
* That part of a carriage, as of a movable battery, or engine, which enables it to turn.

##### Derived terms

* ABS brake
* air brake, airbrake
* air-braked
* antilock brake
* autobrake
* back pedal brake
* band brake
* brake assembly
* brake band
* brake bias
* brake block
* brake check
* brake cylinder
* brake disc
* brake drum
* brake dust
* brake fade
* brake fluid
* brakeforce
* brakeful
* brakegear, brake gear
* brake harrow
* brake horsepower
* brakeless
* brake light
* brake line
* brake lining
* brakeload
* brakemaker
* brakeman, brakesman
* brake mean effective pressure
* brake noodle
* brake pad, brakepad
* brake pedal
* brake pipe, brakepipe
* brake press
* brake shoe, brakeshoe
* brake tender
* brake test
* brake van
* brake wheel
* brakewoman
* brakey
* bread brake
* brifter
* caliper brake
* cane brake
* coaster brake
* dead man's brake
* deadman's brake
* disc brake
* drum brake
* dynamic brake
* e-brake
* emergency brake
* foot brake
* friction brake
* hand brake, handbrake
* independent brake
* jake brake
* muzzle brake
* parabrake
* parking brake
* press brake
* Prony brake
* put the brakes on
* rail brake
* regenerative brake
* ribbon brake
* rim brake
* sand brake
* service brake
* shooting brake
* shooting-brake
* spoon brake
* strap brake
* track brake
* tread brake
* unbraked
* vacuum brake
* V brake
* water brake
* Westinghouse brake
* wheelbrake

##### Descendants

* → Japanese: ブレーキ (burēki)
* → Korean: 브레이크 (beureikeu)
* → Portuguese: breque
* → Swahili: breki
* → Thai: เบรก (brèek)
* → Welsh: brêc

##### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

#### Verb

brake (third-person singular simple present brakes, present participle braking, simple past and past participle braked)
* (intransitive) To operate a brake or brakes.
** 1950 November, “Mixed-Traffic Diesel-Electric Locomotives for Ireland”, in Railway Magazine, page 781:Auxiliaries and ancillaries are comprehensive, and include a Westinghouse motor-driven recriprocating compressor used for locomotive braking and general service air, two rotary exhauster sets for train brakes when hauling passenger or fitted freight trains, and an oil-fired train heating boiler.
* (intransitive) To be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking.

##### Synonyms

* (to be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking): See also Thesaurus:stop

##### Antonyms

* (antonym(s) of “to operate brakes”): floor it, put the pedal to the metal, redline
* (antonym(s) of “to be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking”): accelerate

##### Derived terms

* aerobrake
* braker
* lithobrake
* overbrake
* unbrake

##### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Etymology 2

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

#### Noun

brake (plural brakes)
* A fern; bracken (Pteridium). [from 14th c.]
* Any fern in the genus Pteris.

##### Derived terms

* canebrake
* cliffbrake
* fernbrake
* rockbrake

##### Translations
### Etymology 3

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”).

#### Noun

brake (plural brakes)
* A thicket, or an area overgrown with briers etc. [from 15th c.]
** 1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC:Rounds rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough, / To shelter thee from tempest and from rain.
** 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 stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone.
** 1807, William Wordsworth, Poems, Fidelity: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 […]
** 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: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.

##### Derived terms

* cypress brake

##### Translations
#### References

* James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Brake”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC.
* “brake”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.

### Etymology 4

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

#### Noun

brake (plural brakes)
* (textiles) A tool used for breaking flax or hemp. [from 15th c.]
* A type of machine for bending sheet metal. (See wikipedia.)
* A large, heavy harrow for breaking clods after ploughing; a drag.

##### Related terms

* (textiles) hackle, ripple, scutch, swingle

##### Translations
#### Verb

brake (third-person singular simple present brakes, present participle braking, simple past and past participle braked)
* (transitive) To bruise and crush; to knead.
    The farmer’s son brakes the flax while mother brakes the bread dough
* (transitive) To pulverise with a harrow.

##### Derived terms

* brakeage

##### Translations
### Etymology 5

Uncertain.

#### Noun

brake (plural brakes)
* (obsolete) A cage. [16th–17th c.]
* (now historical) A type of torture instrument. [from 16th c.]
** 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 83: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.

### Etymology 6

Inflected forms.

#### Verb

brake
* (archaic) simple past of break
** 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 32:3:And all the people brake off the golden earrings […]

### Anagrams

* Abrek, Baker, baker, barke, break

## Dutch
### Pronunciation

* Audio:(file)

### Verb

brake
* (dated or formal) singular past subjunctive of breken
* (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of braken

### Anagrams

* baker

## Yola
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /braːk/

### Verb

brake
* simple past of brough
** 1867, CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, page 114, lines 12-14:az avare ye trad dicke londe yer name waz ee-kent var ee vriene o' livertie, an He fo brake ye neckarès o' zlaves.for before your foot pressed the soil, your name was known to us as the friend of liberty, and he who broke the fetters of the slave.

### References

* Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 114