Noun

(es) (wikipedia branch)

The woody part of a tree arising from the trunk and usually dividing.

Any of the parts of something that divides like the branch of a tree.

the branch of an antler, a chandelier, a river, or a railway

(geometry) One of the portions of a curve that extends outwards to an indefinitely great distance.

the branches of a hyperbola

A location of an organization with several locations.

Our main branch is downtown, and we have branches in all major suburbs.

A line of family descent, in distinction from some other line or lines from the same stock; any descendant in such a line.

the English branch of a family

* Carew

his father, a younger branch of the ancient stock

(Mormonism) A local congregation of the LDS Church that is not large enough to form a ward; see .

An area in business or of knowledge, research.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01

, author=Robert L. Dorit , title=Rereading Darwin , volume=100, issue=1, page=23 , magazine= citation , passage=We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.}}

(nautical) A certificate given by (Trinity House) to a pilot qualified to take navigational control of a ship in British waters.

(computer architecture) A sequence of .

Noun

(es)

A gap or opening made by breaking or battering, as in a wall, fortification or levee; the space between the parts of a solid body rent by violence; a break; a rupture; a fissure.

* 1599 , , Henry V , act 3, scene 1:

"Once more unto the breach , dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead."

A breaking up of amicable relations, a falling-out.

* Shakespeare

There's fallen between him and my lord / An unkind breach .

A breaking of waters, as over a vessel or a coastal defence; the waters themselves; surge; surf.

A clear breach''' is when the waves roll over the vessel without breaking. A clean '''breach is when everything on deck is swept away.

* Bible, 2 Sam. v. 20

The Lord hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me, as the breach of waters.

* 1719 , :

I cast my eye to the stranded vessel, when, the breach and froth of the sea being so big, I could hardly see it, it lay so far of; and considered, Lord! how was it possible I could get on shore.

A breaking out upon; an assault.

* Bible, 1 Chron. xiii. 11

The Lord had made a breach upon Uzza.

(archaic) A bruise; a wound.

* Bible, Leviticus xxiv. 20

breach for breach, eye for eye

(archaic) A hernia; a rupture.

(legal) A breaking or infraction of a law, or of any obligation or tie; violation; non-fulfillment; as, a breach of contract; a breach of promise.

(figurative) A difference in opinions, social class etc.

* 2013 September 28, , " London Is Special, but Not That Special," New York Times (retrieved 28 September 2013):

For London to have its own exclusive immigration policy would exacerbate the sense that immigration benefits only certain groups and disadvantages the rest. It would entrench the gap between London and the rest of the nation. And it would widen the breach between the public and the elite that has helped fuel anti-immigrant hostility.

The act of breaking, in a figurative sense.

* 1748 , David Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding , Section 3, § 12:

But were the poet to make a total difression from his subject, and introduce a new actor, nowise connected with the personages, the imagination, feeling a breach in transition, would enter coldly into the new scene;