Noun

(en noun)

An opening in anything made by breaking or parting.

An opening allowing passage or entrance.

An opening that implies a breach or defect.

A vacant space or time.

A hiatus.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= The machine of a new soul , passage=The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure. Yet this is the level of organisation that does the actual thinking—and is, presumably, the seat of consciousness.}}

A mountain or hill pass.

(label) A sheltered area of coast between two cliffs (mostly restricted to place names).

(label) The regions between the outfielders.

The shortfall between the amount the medical insurer will pay to the service provider and the scheduled fee for the item.

* 2008 , Eileen Willis, Louise Reynolds, Helen Keleher, Understanding the Australian Health Care System , page 5,

Under bulk billing the patient does not pay a gap , and the medical practitioner receives 85% of the scheduled fee.

* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 13, author=Andrew Benson, work=BBC Sport

, title= Williams's Pastor Maldonado takes landmark Spanish Grand Prix win , passage=That left Maldonado with a 6.2-second lead. Alonso closed in throughout their third stints, getting the gap down to 4.2secs before Maldonado stopped for the final time on lap 41.}}

* {{quote-book, year=1995, author=Robert E. Knoll, chapter=A University on the Defensive 1920-1927

, title= Prairie University: A History of the University of Nebraska, page=70 , passage=When Charles Bessey suddenly died in 1916 at age seventy, he left a gap that was impossible to fill; and though his protégé. R. J. Pool, was a man of intelligence and character, he did not have Bessey’s authority.}}

(label) (usually written as "the gap") The disparity between the indigenous and non-indigenous communities with regard to life expectancy, education, health, etc.

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;