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breakdown

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Idioms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.03 sec.
breakdown [′brāk‚dau̇n]
(electricity)
A large, usually abrupt rise in electric current in the presence of a small increase in voltage; can occur in a confined gas between two electrodes, a gas tube, the atmosphere (as lightning), an electrical insulator, and a reverse-biased semiconductor diode. Also known as electrical breakdown.
(metallurgy)
The initial process of rolling and drawing, or a series of such processes, which reduce a casting or extruded shape before its final reduction to desired size.
(petroleum engineering)
The amount of pressure required at the wellhead to rupture a formation during fracture treatment.


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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
What else than Feudalism could have followed upon the breakdown of that great centralized governmental machine known as the Roman Empire?
Instead of it even-- as a woman reads another--she could see what I myself saw: his derision, his amusement, his contempt for the breakdown of my resignation at being left alone and for the fine machinery I had set in motion to attract his attention to my slighted charms.
The memory of all that had happened after her illness: her reconciliation with her husband, its breakdown, the news of Vronsky's wound, his visit, the preparations for divorce, the departure from her husband's house, the parting from her son--all that seemed to her like a delirious dream, from which she had waked up alone with Vronsky abroad.
 
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