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To break at once; to break short, as substances that are brittle. Breaks the doors open, snaps the locks. Prior.

, or to cut off at once with shears or scissors; to clip off suddenly; to nip; hence, to break off; to snatch away. Curbed and snipped in my younger years by fear of my parents from those vicious excrescences to which that age was subject. Fuller. The captain seldom ordered anything out of the ship's stores . . . but I…

To clip or break off the end of; to check or stunt the growth of; to nop.

The act of sobbing; a convulsive sigh, or inspiration of the breath, as in sorrow. Break, heart, or choke with sobs my hated breath. Dryden.

Druden. No sober man would put himself into danger for the applause of escaping without breaking his neck. Dryden.

, sommerset, summerset, etc.] "The vaulter's sombersalts." Donne. Now I'll only Make him break his neck in doing a sommerset. Beau. & Fl.

d for the sweetness of its song in early spring. Its breast is covered with dusky brown streaks which form a blotch in the center. -- Song thrush (Zoöl.), a common European thrush (Turdus musicus), noted for its melodius song; -- called also mavis, throsite, and thrasher.

To break into small pieces, as ore, for the purpose of separating from rock. Pryce.

Liable to break or split; brittle; as, spalt timber. [Prov. Eng.] Halliwell.

To split; to break; to spalt. [Obs.] Mortimer.

To break ground; to continue working.

The male germinal or seminal cell, from the breaking up of which the spermoblasts are formed and ultimately the spermatozoids; a spermatospore. Balfour.

A sudden motion or action; a fit; a freak; a whim. [Obs. or R.] A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways. Shak.

To divide or break up into parts or divisions, as by discord; to separate into parts or parties, as a political party; to disunite. [Colloq.] South.

To practice plunder or robbery. Outlaws, which, lurking in woods, used to break forth to rob and spoil. Spenser.

Fig.: To get by imposition or mean arts without cost; as, to sponge a breakfast. Swift.

reproduction resembling multitude fission, common among Protozoa, in which the organism breaks up into a number of pieces, or spores, each of which eventually develops into an organism like the parent form. Balfour.

Fig.: A sudden outbreak; as, a spurt of jealousy. Spurt grass (Bot.), a rush fit for basket work. Dr. Prior.

loq.] Dickens. -- To be at square, to be in a state of quarreling. [Obs.] Nares. -- To break no square, to give no offense; to make no difference. [Obs.] -- To break squares, to depart from an accustomed order. To see how the squares go, to see how the game proceeds; -- a phrase taken from the game of chess, the ches…

; or, to make a sharp, disagreeable noise, as a pipe or quill, a wagon wheel, a door; to creak. Who can endure to hear one of the rough old Romans squeaking through the mouth of an eunuch Addison. Zoilus calls the companions of Ulysses the "squeaking pigs" of Homer. Pope.