Housebreaking, in this sense, is the crime of getting into someone else’s house by force — breaking locks, windows, or doors — in order to steal. The line in some learner lists makes it sound like a person; though actually the person is a housebreaker, and housebreaking is the act. It is close to burglary, and in British legal language housebreaking was long the usual word for this kind of break-in. You will still hear it in news and in court-ish English. In the United States, the same spelling has another common life that is easy to mix up: to housebreak a puppy is to train it not to urinate or defecate in the house (British English prefers house-train). Same pieces, different “break”: one is smashing a way in; the other is training, as in breaking in a horse. If the talk is of thieves and windows, you want the crime sense.

入室盜竊、破門行竊（罪）；美式另可指訓練寵物不在家裡大小便