breeze
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: ball-games
climatology
cricket
games
hobbies
lifestyle
meteorology
natural-sciences
sports
weather
Etymology: From the earlier (nautical) term brise, brize (“breeze”), from Middle English brees (“wind”). Ultimate origin obscure.
Variously supposed to derive from a Germanic source like Saterland Frisian Briese (“breeze”), West Frisian brys (“a cool wind”), Dutch bries (“breeze”), early Dutch brysen (“to blow cool and fresh”), or from Spanish brisa (“northeast wind”).
The earliest attestations are in Middle English brees (1460), Catalan brisa, and Italian brezza (all in 15th century), with Spanish (1504) and Portuguese briza (16th century) following closely after. The aforementioned Dutch cognates and French brise, however, are attested later than the term in English. The only internal hypothesis for any of those languages is a modification of Old Occitan bisa (“strong wind”), which is not widely accepted.
Compare also Albanian breshër (“hail”).
Inflected forms:
form: breezes
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: brize
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: briess
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: breezes
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: breezing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: breezed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: breezed
pos: verb
tags: past
form: brize
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: briess
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: A light, gentle wind.
pos: noun
examples: The breeze rustled the papers on her desk.
Into a gradual calm the breezes sink.
Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.
gloss: Any activity that is easy, not testing or difficult.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: After studying Latin, Spanish was a breeze.
The eight-minute connection to East Midlands Railway is a breeze. The train is 170208, its First Class downrated, so I enjoy the wider seats for the hour to Ely, where I arrive a couple of minutes early.
gloss: Wind blowing across a cricket match, whatever its strength.
pos: noun
gloss: An excited or ruffled state of feeling; a flurry of excitement; a disturbance; a quarrel.
pos: noun
examples: The discovery produced a breeze.
gloss: A brief workout for a racehorse.
pos: noun
gloss: To move casually, in a carefree manner.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
usually
examples: Resting most of their first-choice players for Sunday's vital Euro 2024 qualifier against Croatia, Wales started with four debutants and breezed into an early lead thanks to headers by captain Ben Davies and Kieffer Moore.
gloss: To blow gently.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: She's sitting opposite a window that's gently breezing into her face, wafting her hair into cover-girl perfection ...
gloss: To take a horse on a light run in order to understand the running characteristics of the horse and to observe it while under motion.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To swim near the surface of the water, causing ripples in the surface.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The first was a school of medium-sized ( 10-pound average ) fish that breezed frequently but bit poorly.
The Queen Mary stood by while a speedboat moved ahead of a breezing school of tuna to deploy the sound projector and a sonobuoy (Figure 6).
An intermediate line has its place when chasing breezing tuna that are moving at mach speed on the surface.
Synonyms: cakewalk
cinch
doddle
piece of cake
walk in the park
walkover
Derived words: bat the breeze
bay breeze
breeze-block
breezefly
breezeless
breezelike
breezen
breezeway
breezy
coke breeze
fresh breeze
gentle breeze
land breeze
light breeze
mackerel breeze
Malibu bay breeze
moderate breeze
Morning Breeze
nightbreeze
seabreeze
sea breeze
Seabreeze
shoot the breeze
split the breeze
strong breeze
upbreeze
breeze off
breeze past
breezer
breeze through
breeze up
Translations: