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/breɪk daʊn/ Listen

Break down

verb

Make ineffective. Synonym: crush.

Make a mathematical, chemical, or grammatical analysis of; break down into components or essential features. Synonyms: analyse, analyze, dissect, take apart. "Analyze a sentence" , "Analyze a chemical compound" Antonym: synthesize.

Lose control of one's emotions. Synonyms: lose it, snap. "When her baby died, she snapped"

Stop operating or functioning. Synonyms: break, conk out, die, fail, give out, give way, go, go bad. "The car died on the road" , "The bus we travelled in broke down on the way to town" , "The coffee maker broke" , "The engine failed on the way to town" , "Her eyesight went after the accident"

Fall apart. Synonyms: collapse, crumble, crumple, tumble. "Negotiations broke down"

Cause to fall or collapse.

Separate (substances) into constituent elements or parts. Synonyms: break up, decompose.

Collapse due to fatigue, an illness, or a sudden attack. Synonym: collapse.

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"Break down" Quotes from Famous Books

... your word and married me, but I am not looking for that kind of a winning. I don't mind confessing that I played my last card when I released you from your engagement. I said to myself: If that doesn't break down the ...

— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... from birth, parents being expected to present them once a year at school for examination by the school physician. In this way defects can be corrected and health measures devised to build up a physique that should not break down under the strain of school life. For children whose mothers work during the day, and for those whose home environment is worse than school, it might be cheaper in the long run to assign teachers to protect them from injury while they play in a park, roof ...

— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... attempt at international disarmament must break down on the question of control, which is absolutely impracticable. A classic example of that is afforded by Prussia when overthrown by Napoleon. Her army was to be limited to 45,000 men, but her patriotism, notwithstanding the most ruthless application of every means of ...

— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... everything en etat monumental; thankless work, not counted, without immediate profit." He speaks of working at this amazing rate for three years longer; in reality he worked for fifteen. But two years after the declaration we have just quoted, it seemed to him that he should break down: "My poor sister, I am draining the cup to the dregs. It is in vain that I work my fourteen hours a day; I can't do enough. While I write this to you I find myself so weary that I have just sent Auguste to take back ...

— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... give way to tears more readily than men? Granted. Is their sex any the weaker for it? Not a bit. It is simply a difference of temperament: that is all. It involves no inferiority. If you think that this habit necessarily means weakness, wait and see! Who has not seen women break down in tears during some domestic calamity, while the "stronger sex" were calm; and who has not seen those same women, that temporary excitement being over, rise up and dry their eyes, and be thenceforth the support and stay of their households, and perhaps bear ...

— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

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