brake Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a restraint used to slow or stop a vehicle
  2. noun any of various ferns of the genus Pteris having pinnately compound leaves and including several popular houseplants
  3. noun large coarse fern often several feet high; essentially weed ferns; cosmopolitan
    bracken; pasture brake; Pteridium aquilinum.
  4. noun an area thickly overgrown usually with one kind of plant
  5. noun anything that slows or hinders a process
    • she wan not ready to put the brakes on her life with a marriage
    • new legislation will put the brakes on spending
  6. verb stop travelling by applying a brake
    • We had to brake suddenly when a chicken crossed the road
  7. verb cause to stop by applying the brakes
    • brake the car before you go into a curve

WordNet

Brake imperfect
Definitions
  1. of Break. Arhaic Tennyson.
Brake noun
Etymology
OE. brake fern; cf. AS. bracce fern, LG. brake willow bush, Da. bregne fern, G. brach fallow; prob. orig. the growth on rough, broken ground, fr. the root of E. break. See Break, v. t., cf. Bracken, and 2d Brake, n.
Definitions
  1. (Bot.) A fern of the genus Pteris, esp. the P. aquilina, common in almost all countries. It has solitary stems dividing into three principal branches. Less properly: Any fern.
  2. A thicket; a place overgrown with shrubs and brambles, with undergrowth and ferns, or with canes.
    Rounds rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough, To shelter thee from tempest and from rain. Shak.
    He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone. Sir W. Scott.
Brake noun
Etymology
OE. brake; cf. LG. brake an instrument for breaking flax, G. breche, fr. the root of E. break. See Break, v. t., and cf. Breach.
Definitions
  1. An instrument or machine to break or bruise the woody part of flax or hemp so that it may be separated from the fiber.
  2. An extended handle by means of which a number of men can unite in working a pump, as in a fire engine.
  3. A baker's kneading though. Johnson.
  4. A sharp bit or snaffle.
    Pampered jades . . . which need nor break nor bit. Gascoigne.
  5. A frame for confining a refractory horse while the smith is shoeing him; also, an inclosure to restrain cattle, horses, etc.
    A horse . . . which Philip had bought . . . and because of his fierceness kept him within a brake of iron bars. J. Brende.
  6. That part of a carriage, as of a movable battery, or engine, which enables it to turn.
  7. (Mil.) An ancient engine of war analogous to the crossbow and ballista.
  8. (Agric.) A large, heavy harrow for breaking clods after plowing; a drag.
  9. A piece of mechanism for retarding or stopping motion by friction, as of a carriage or railway car, by the pressure of rubbers against the wheels, or of clogs or ratchets against the track or roadway, or of a pivoted lever against a wheel or drum in a machine.
  10. (Engin.) 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.
  11. A cart or carriage without a body, used in breaking in horses.
  12. An ancient instrument of torture. Holinshed.

Webster 1913