Noun

(en noun) (US)

The act of offending:

# a crime or sin

#* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=

, title=Internal Combustion , chapter=2 citation , passage=The popular late Middle Ages fictional character Robin Hood, dressed in green to symbolize the forest, dodged fines for forest offenses and stole from the rich to give to the poor. But his appeal was painfully real and embodied the struggle over wood.}}

# an affront, insult or injury.

#* Dryden

I have given my opinion against the authority of two great men, but I hope without offence to their memories.

The state of being offended or displeased; anger; displeasure.

) A strategy and tactics employed when in position to score; ''contrasted with defense.

) The portion of a team dedicated to scoring when in position to do so; ''contrasted with defense.

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;