breach
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /bɹiːtʃ/
rhymes: -iːtʃ
homophone: breech
Forms: form: breaches
form: breaching
form: breached
form: breached
Etymology: From Middle English breche, from Old English bryċe (“fracture, breach”) and brǣċ (“breach, breaking, destruction”), from Proto-West Germanic *bruki, from Proto-Germanic *brukiz (“breach, fissure”) and *brēkō (“breaking”).
Senses: examples: text: They breached the outer wall, but not the main one.
glosses: To make a breach in.
examples: text: "I therefore agree with the Court that the Government did breach its contract with petitioners in failing to approve, within 30 days of its receipt, the plan of exploration petitioners submitted."
ref: 2000, Justice Stevens., Mobile Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast, Inc. v. United States:
glosses: To violate or break.
examples: text: On this occasion, the damage was far more serious. The sea wall was breached completely for a distance of over 50 yd., and the gap had to be bridged by a temporary timber viaduct.
ref: 1947 January and February, H. A. Vallance, “The Sea Wall at Dawlish”, in Railway Magazine, page 18:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To break into a ship or into a coastal defence.
raw_tags: of the sea
examples: text: Picard: We don't have time for this! The Pasteur’s core is going to breach!
ref: 1994, Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore, “All Good Things...”, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 7, episodes 25-26, Patrick Stewart (actor):
glosses: To suffer a breach.
examples: text: The fearless whale-fishermen now found themselves in the midst of the monsters; ... some ... came jumping into the light of day, head uppermost, exhibiting their entire bodies in the sun, and falling on their sides into the water with the weight of a hundred tons, and thus "breaching" with a crash that the thunder of a park of artillery could scarcely equal.
ref: 1835, Joseph C. Hart, Miriam Coffin, or The whale-fishermen, volume 2, Harper & brothers, page 147:
text: But one of its most surprising feats, as has been mentioned of the genera already described, is leaping completely out of the water, or 'breaching,' as it is called. ... it seldom breaches more than twice or thrice at a time, and in quick succession.
ref: 1837, Robert Hamilton, The natural history of the ordinary cetacea or whales, W.H. Lizars, page 166:
glosses: To leap out of the water.
raw_tags: of a whale or other sea creature
examples: text: […]the Pre-Sentence Report states that: "He was breached by the probation officer within several months of the commencement of the Probation Order for failing to report as he relocated to another Province and did not report there as directed.[…]"
ref: 2011 June 7, D.A. Harris, “R. v. Larochelle, 2011 ONCJ 339”, in CanLII, retrieved 10 Oct 2021:
text: However, you can breach your landlord if the maintenance item is considered an emergency repair under the terms of your lease.
ref: 2023 January 30, Frances Fernandez, “Can I stop paying rent if the landlord refuses to do maintenance?”, in First National Real Estate Rochedale:
text: Tenants have a right to breach a landlord for a failure to undertake necessary maintenance.
ref: 2025 February 27, “Tenant rental rights you need to know about”, in RentCover:
text: "We breached them for a number of code breaches and we recommended to the Nine Network that they publish that and essentially what we were saying is that if you do that then we'll consider the file closed," Mr Chapman said.
ref: 2016 February 16, Max Mason, “ACMA boss Chris Chapman calls for stronger powers”, in Sydney Morning Herald:
text: How often have you had to breach someone for, effectively, failure to cooperate with an investigation by not providing information?
ref: 2025 March 4, Barbara Pocock, “Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services - 04/03/2025 - Oversight of ASIC, the Takeovers Panel and the Corporations Legislation public hearing”, in parliamentary debates:
topics: law
glosses: To charge, convict or take legal action against someone due to not meeting a legal obligation.
Derived terms: breachable
breacher
unbreached