break (redirected from giving a break)

break

(1) To temporarily or permanently stop executing, printing or transmitting.

(2) In cryptography, to decrypt a ciphertext without knowing the key or to find a flaw in an encryption algorithm or implementation that permits such cryptanalysis.

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1.		break - To cause to be broken. "Your latest patch to the editor broke the paragraph commands."
2.		break - (Of a program) To stop temporarily, so that it may debugged. The place where it stops is a "breakpoint".
3.		break - To send an EIA-232 break (two character widths of line high) over a serial line.
4.		break - [Unix] To strike whatever key currently causes the tty driver to send SIGINT to the current process. Normally, break, delete or control-C does this.
5.		break - "break break" may be said to interrupt a conversation (this is an example of verb doubling). This usage comes from radio communications, which in turn probably came from landline telegraph/teleprinter usage, as badly abused in the Citizen's Band craze.
6.		break - pipeline break.
7.		break - break statement.