BREAST • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Breast

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noun

Breast n.

1.

The fore part of the body, between the neck and the belly; the chest; as, the breast of a man or of a horse.

2.

Either one of the protuberant glands, situated on the front of the chest or thorax in the female of man and of some other mammalia, in which milk is secreted for the nourishment of the young; a mamma; a teat. "My brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother."

3.

Anything resembling the human breast, or bosom; the front or forward part of anything; as, a chimney breast; a plow breast; the breast of a hill. "Mountains on whose barren breast The laboring clouds do often rest."

4.

(Mining)

(a)

The face of a coal working.

(b)

The front of a furnace.

5.

The seat of consciousness; the repository of thought and self-consciousness, or of secrets; the seat of the affections and passions; the heart. "He has a loyal breast."

6.

The power of singing; a musical voice; so called, probably, from the connection of the voice with the lungs, which lie within the breast. (Obs.) "By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast."

Breast drill, a portable drilling machine, provided with a breastplate, for forcing the drill against the work.

Breast pang. See Angina pectoris, under Angina.

To make a clean breast, to disclose the secrets which weigh upon one; to make full confession.

Breast, Brest n. (Arch.) A torus. (Obs.)

verb

Breast v. t. (past & past part. breasted; pres. part. breasting) To meet, with the breast; to struggle with or oppose manfully; as, to breast the storm or waves. "The court breasted the popular current by sustaining the demurrer."

To breast up a hedge, to cut the face of it on one side so as to lay bare the principal upright stems of the plants.

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Etymology of 'Breast'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Breast" Quotes from Famous Books

... he reached a tree, "Sugar, thirty-four, six," by which Wilbur understood him to mean that the tree was a sugar pine, that it was thirty-four inches in diameter breast high, and that it would cut into six logs of the regular sixteen-foot length. It probably would be thirty or fifty feet higher, but the top could only be used for posts, cordwood, and similar uses. Such a tree, having been estimated ...

— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... unreasonably when I imagine that you may wish to know something of me. I can gratify your benevolence with no account of health. The hand of time, or of disease, is very heavy upon me. I pass restless and uneasy nights, harassed with convulsions of my breast, and flatulencies at my stomach; and restless nights make heavy days. But nothing will be mended by complaints, and therefore I will make an end. When we meet, we will try to forget our cares and our maladies, and contribute, as we can, to the chearfulness of each other. If I had gone with ...

— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... and talked with him of that secret matter that lay in his breast, but there needed not much persuasion in the case; for as at first he was willing that Diabolus should be let into the town, so now he was as willing to serve him there. When the tyrant therefore perceived the willingness of my Lord to serve him, and that his ...

— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... graves, And yet to prosper? Instruction to thee Comes like sweet showers to o'er-harden'd ground; They wet, but pierce not deep. And so I leave thee, With all the furies hanging 'bout thy neck, Till by thy penitence thou remove this evil, In conjuring from thy breast that cruel ...

— The White Devil • John Webster

... on a low note. I don't know about Mills, but the subdued shadowy vibration of it echoed in my breast which felt empty for a moment and like a large ...

— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

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