Electricity. an electric discharge passing through faulty insulation or other material used to separate circuits or passing between electrodes in a vacuum or gas-filled tube.
6.
a noisy, lively folk dance.
Origin
1825-35; noun use of verb phrase break down
Examples from the web for breakdown
It's interesting that you are having a nervous breakdown, so to speak.
She went to the meeting because she felt she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
She wondered if this was a nervous breakdown, the genuine article.
In the nineteen-eighties, he drank himself into a nervous breakdown.
Pete nearly has a breakdown trying to decide, but finally settles on apple.
Maybe that's because the role arthropods play in the breakdown of a dinosaur body has only been relatively recently appreciated.
Once in the environment, it takes months to hundreds of years for plastic bags to breakdown.
Exposure to moisture, air and the elements enhance that breakdown.
Bile acids are components of bile produced during the breakdown of cholesterol in the liver.
There are myriad reasons for the breakdown, all of which might spark curiosity and intellectual energy.
British Dictionary definitions for breakdown
break down
verb (adverb)
1.
(intransitive) to cease to function; become ineffective: communications had broken down
2.
to yield or cause to yield, esp to strong emotion or tears: she broke down in anguish
3.
(transitive) to crush or destroy
4.
(intransitive) to have a nervous breakdown
5.
to analyse or be subjected to analysis
6.
to separate or cause to separate into simpler chemical elements; decompose
7.
(transitive) (NZ) to saw (a large log) into planks
an analysis or classification of something into its component parts: he prepared a breakdown of the report
12.
the sudden electrical discharge through an insulator or between two electrodes in a vacuum or gas discharge tube
13.
(electrical engineering) the sudden transition, dependent on the bias magnitude, from a high to a low dynamic resistance in a semiconductor device
14.
a lively American country dance
Word Origin and History for breakdown
n.
"a collapse," 1832, from break (v.) + down (adv.). The verbal phrase is attested from late 14c. The noun, specifically of machinery, is from 1838; meaning "an analysis in detail" is from 1936. Nervous breakdown is from 1905.
breakdown in Medicine
breakdown break·down (brāk'doun') n.
The act or process of failing to function or continue.
A typically sudden collapse in physical or mental health.
Disintegration or decomposition into parts or elements.