Etymology

Noun

1. The act of breaking, in a figurative sense.
   • 1748. David Hume. Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Section 3. § 12.

     But were the poet to make a total difression from his subject, and introduce a new actor, nowise connected with the personages, the imagination, feeling a breach in transition, would enter coldly into the new scene;

2. A breaking or infraction of a law, or of any obligation or tie; violation; non-fulfillment; as, a breach of contract; a breach of promise.
3. A gap or opening made by breaking or battering, as in a wall or fortification; the space between the parts of a solid body rent by violence; a break; a rupture.

   Quotation

   • 1599: "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead." — Henry V: Ac.3 Sc1, Wm. Shakespeare.

1. A breaking up of amicable relations; rupture.
2. A breaking of waters, as over a vessel or a coastal defence; the waters themselves; surge; surf.
   • 1719: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

     I cast my eye to the stranded vessel, when, the breach and froth of the sea being so big, I could hardly see it, it lay so far of; and considered, Lord! how was it possible I could get on shore.

3. A breaking out upon; an assault.
4. A bruise; a wound.
5. A hernia; a rupture.

Verb

1. To break (in the above senses)
2. , to break into a ship or into a coastal defence
3. to leap clear out of the water