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/brˈeɪkdˌaʊn/ Listen

noun

Breakdown n.

The act or result of breaking down, as of a carriage; downfall.

(a)

A noisy, rapid, shuffling dance engaged in competitively by a number of persons or pairs in succession, as among the colored people of the Southern United States, and so called, perhaps, because the exercise is continued until most of those who take part in it break down.

(b)

Any rude, noisy dance performed by shuffling the feet, usually by one person at a time. (U.S.) "Don't clear out when the quadrilles are over, for we are going to have a breakdown to wind up with."

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Etymology of 'Breakdown'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Breakdown" Quotes from Famous Books

... dialects with some important differences in vocabulary and construction. These are shown most strikingly in some of the ballads of that region which have been collected by William Aspinwall Bradley, and by Howard Brockway. Rural schools and the breakdown of complete isolation will probably in time ...

— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... him that he lets you see," replied the man. "His gaiety is all forced. If you could see him after you leave you would realize that he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Your father is not an old man in years, but he has placed a constant surtax on his nervous system for the last twenty-five years without a let-up, and it doesn't make any difference how good a machine may be it is ...

— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... and as with deft fingers he would strike some strange new note or chord, you would see his eyes brighten, he would begin to smile and laugh as if his very soul were tickled, while his hearers would catch the inspiration, and an old-fashioned 'walk-round' and 'negro breakdown', in which all would participate, would be the inevitable result. At other times, with our musical instruments, we would sally forth into the night and 'neath moon and stars and under 'Bonny Bell window panes' — ah, those serenades! were there ever or will there ever be anything like them again? ...

— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... he is restless, is given to little tricks like pulling at his hair, or biting his nails, he is nervous. The mother excuses her spoiled child on the ground of his nervousness, and I have seen a thoroughly bad boy who branded his baby sister with a heated spoon called "nervous." A "nervous breakdown" is a familiar verbal disguise for one or other of the sinister faces ...

— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson

... the chestnut where you want to mature them fairly early in the fall, it might work all right, because it will withhold the nitrogen in the breakdown of your sawdust. But apparently, it works pretty well. I think it was Mr. Sam Hemming who suggested using it in the rows. Most of our State Forests and Waters nurseries in their seedling beds, plant their seedlings, including chestnuts, make a mixture of sawdust and sand, about one of sawdust ...

— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

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