breakawayadj/ˈbɹeɪkəweɪ/

• 1

  Having broken away from a larger unit.

  • The breakaway republic is slowly establishing order and civil society.
  • 1946, William Brown, Hansard, 19 November, 1946, Trade Unions Closed Shop, https://web.archive.org/web/20190212095659/https://www.hansard-corpus.org/ Nor is it true, although it has been suggested as true, that I am in favour of breakaway or splinter unions
• 2

  Capable of breaking off without damaging the larger structure.

  • a breakaway wall
  • In Hollywood, rehearsing for his show, Red Skelton plunged headlong into a "breakaway" door. It didn't break, and Red was hospitalized with concussion and a mild case of shock.
• 3

  hobbiesice-hockeylifestyleOccurring during or as a result of a breakaway (see Noun)

  • 2016, Scott Feschuk, "Counting down the most annoying in video review, by sport," sportsnet.ca, 10 July, 2016, http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/counting-annoying-video-review-sport/ In a league starved for scoring, the challenge ensures that some super-sweet breakaway goals will be overturned because a dude was three microns offside.
• 4

  economicsentertainmententertainment-industryEnjoying rapid popular success.

  • The New York quintet call themselves Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, and their RCA debut LP is this season's breakaway disco act.
  • In that season, NBC added another first-year breakaway hit, Friends.

breakawaynoun/ˈbɹeɪkəweɪ/

• 1

  The act of breaking away from something.

  • 1932, Alan Lennox-Boyd, Hansard, 10 May, 1932, Finance Bill, https://web.archive.org/web/20190212095659/https://www.hansard-corpus.org/ […] this Finance Bill represents a definite breakaway from the old practice of mass bribing, vote catching, and political Finance Bills which we were in grave danger of establishing as a permanent part of our national activities.
  • If the horse had been any good—or if he had known how to get any good out of the horse—he would have risked everything on a breakaway and a wild gallop.
• 2

  A group of riders which has gone ahead of the peloton.

  • The summit of the climb came 38km from the end of stage 14, which began in Limoux and ended in Foix in the foothills of the Pyrenees, and the incident occurred as the peloton emerged into the light and passed under the banner at the top, a quarter of an hour behind a five-man breakaway.
• 3

  hobbiesice-hockeylifestyleA situation in the game where one or more players of a team attack towards the goal of the other team without having any defenders in front of them.

  • 2015, Eric MacKenzie, "Canucks fall 2-1 to Oilers in OT," vancouver24hrs.ca, 18 October, 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20151020145050/http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2015/10/19/canucks-fall-2-1-to-oilers-in-ot With the game tied 1-1 early in the third, Henrik got free on a breakaway and was stopped by Oilers goalie Anders Nilsson […]
• 4

  boxinggovernmenthobbiesThe act of getting away from one's opponent; the separation of the boxers after a spell of infighting.

  • 2011, Colleen Aycock and Mark Scott (eds.), The First Black Boxing Champions: Essays on Fighters of the 1800s to the 1920s, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Appendix: The Great Fights, George Dixon vs. Jack Skelly (September 6, 1892), p. 262, The gong sounded almost immediately after the breakaway.
• 5

  A stampede of animals.

• 6

  An animal that breaks away from a herd.

  • 1893, The Argus, 29 April, 1893, p. 4, col. 4, cited in Edward Ellis Morris, Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages, 1898, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks09/0900231.txt The smartest stock horse that ever brought his rider up within whip distance of a breakaway or dodged the horns of a sulky beast, took the chance.
• 7

  geographynatural-sciencesAn eroding steep slope on the edge of a plateau; an escarpment.

• 8

  A channel of floodwater that has burst from its usual course; or the track or channel eroded by the water.

  • He was forced to slow to a walking pace in order to negotiate a rack of deep breakaways.