Noun

(en noun)

A failure, particularly mechanical; something that has failed

We saw a breakdown by the side of the road.

A physical collapse or lapse of mental stability

After so much stress, he suffered a breakdown and simply gave up.

Listing, division or categorization in great detail

''Looking at the breakdown of the budget, I see a few items we could cut.

(chemistry) Breaking of chemical bonds within a compound to produce simpler compounds or elements.

A musical technique, by where the music is stripped down, becoming simpler, and can vary in heaviness depending on the genre.

* 1992 , En Vogue, My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It) (song)

And now it's time for a breakdown !

(sports) A loss of organization (of the parts of a system).

* {{quote-news

, year=2011 , date=September 18 , author=Ben Dirs , title=Rugby World Cup 2011: England 41-10 Georgia , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Georgia, ranked 16th in the world, dominated the breakdown before half-time and forced England into a host of infringements, but fly-half Merab Kvirikashvili missed three penalties.}}

(US, dated) A noisy, rapid, shuffling dance engaged in competitively by a number of persons or pairs in succession, as among the blacks of the southern United States.

(US, dated) Any crude, noisy dance performed by shuffling the feet, usually by one person at a time.

* (rfdate) New Eng. Tales

Don't clear out when the quadrilles are over, for we are going to have a breakdown to wind up with.

(US) Any rapid bluegrass dance tune, especially featuring a five-string banjo.

Foggy Mountain 'Breakdown'

* 1893 , (Mark Twain) "The Californian's Tale", in (1906)

Towards nine the three miners said that as they had brought their instruments they might as well tune up, for the boys and girls would soon be arriving now, and hungry for a good old fashioned breakdown . A fiddle, a banjo, and a clarinet - these were the instruments.

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* {{quote-book, ???, title=Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N' Roses, page=102,

books.google.com/books?isbn=1592403778, author=Stephen Davis, year=2008, passage=Izzy lays down some big chords while Slash plays the song's banjo breakdown of a theme.}}

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Noun

(en noun)

The way a person holds and positions their body.

* 1609, William Shakespeare, Coriolanus

As if that whatsoever god who leads him / Were slily crept into his human powers, / And gave him graceful posture .

* 1689 (or earlier), Aphra Behn, Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister

...walking in a most dejected posture , without a band, unbraced, his arms a-cross his open breast, and his eyes bent to the floor;

* 1895, Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture . It is most indecorous.

A situation or condition.

* 1905, David Graham Phillips, The Deluge

Even as I was reading these fables of my millions, there lay on the desk before me a statement of the exact posture of my affairs...

* 1910, H.G. Wells, The History of Mr Polly

Uncle Jim stopped amazed. His brain did not instantly rise to the new posture of things.

One's attitude or the social or political position one takes towards an issue or another person.

* 1651, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

...that is, their Forts, Garrisons, and Guns upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes; and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours; which is a posture of War.

* 1912, G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

But it is not true, no sane person can call it true, that man as a whole in his general attitude towards the world, in his posture towards death or green fields, towards the weather or the baby, will be wise to cultivate dissatisfaction.

(rare) The position of someone or something relative to another; position; situation.

* 1661, Thomas Salusbury (translator), Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World

The Moon beheld in any posture , in respect of the Sun and us, sheweth us its superficies ... always equally clear.