Nick vs Breach - What's the difference?
nick | breach |
A small cut in a surface.
# A particular point or place considered as marked by a nick; the exact point or critical moment.
#*, II.20:
#* Howell
# (printing, dated) A notch cut crosswise in the shank of a type, to assist a compositor in placing it properly in the stick, and in distribution.
Meanings connoting something small.
# (cricket) A small deflection of the ball off the edge of the bat, often going to the wicket-keeper for a catch.
# (real tennis) The point where the wall of the court meets the floor.
# (genetics) One of the single-stranded DNA segments produced during nick translation.
(archaic) A nixie, or water-sprite.
* 1879 , Viktor Rydberg, The Magic of the Middle Ages (p.201)
*:imps, giants, trolls, forest-spirits, elves and hobgoblins in and on the earth; nicks , river-sprites in the water, fiends in the air, and salamanders in the fire.
(UK, slang) In the expressions in bad nick'' and ''in good nick : condition.
* '>citation
(British, slang) A police station or prison.
To make a nick or notch in; to cut or scratch in a minor way.
# To make a cross cut or cuts on the underside of (the tail of a horse, in order to make the animal carry it higher).
# To mar; to deface; to make ragged, as by cutting nicks or notches in.
#* Prior
#* Shakespeare
To suit or fit into, as by a correspondence of nicks; to tally with.
* Camden
# To hit at, or in, the nick; to touch rightly; to strike at the precise point or time.
#* L'Estrange
# To throw or turn up (a number when playing dice); to hit upon.
#* {{quote-book, year=1773
, author=Oliver Goldsmith
, title=She Stoops to Conquer
, text=My old luck: I never nicked seven that I did not throw ames ace three times following.}}
# (cricket) to hit the ball with the edge of the bat and produce a fine deflection
(obsolete) To nickname; to style.
* Ford
(slang) To steal.
(transitive, British, slang) To arrest.
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:
A breaking up of amicable relations, a falling-out.
* Shakespeare
A breaking of waters, as over a vessel or a coastal defence; the waters themselves; surge; surf.
* Bible, 2 Sam. v. 20
* 1719 , :
A breaking out upon; an assault.
* Bible, 1 Chron. xiii. 11
(archaic) A bruise; a wound.
* Bible, Leviticus xxiv. 20
(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, , "
The act of breaking, in a figurative sense.
* 1748 , David Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding , Section 3, ยง 12:
To make a breach in.
To violate or break.
* 2000 , Mobile Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast, Inc. v. United States, Justice Stevens.
(transitive, nautical, of the sea) To break into a ship or into a coastal defence.
(of a whale) To leap clear out of the water.
As a proper noun nick
is a diminutive of the male given name nicholas.As a noun breach is
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.As a verb breach is
to make a breach in.nick
English
(wikipedia nick)Noun
(en noun)- in the nick of time
- Truely he flies when he is even upon the nicke , and naturally hasteneth to escape it, as from a step whereon he cannot stay or containe himselfe, and feareth to sinke into it.
- to cut it off in the very nick
- a user's reserved nick on an IRC network
- The car I bought was cheap and in good nick .
- He was arrested and taken down to Sun Hill nick [police station] to be charged.
- He's just been released from Shadwell nick [prison] after doing ten years for attempted murder.
Derived terms
* in the nick of timeVerb
(en verb)- I nicked myself while I was shaving.
- And thence proceed to nicking sashes.
- The itch of his affection should not then / Have nicked his captainship.
- Words nicking and resembling one another are applicable to different significations.
- The just season of doing things must be nicked , and all accidents improved.
- For Warbeck, as you nick him, came to me.
- Someone's nicked my bike!
- The police nicked him climbing over the fence of the house he'd broken into.
breach
English
(wikipedia breach)Noun
(es)- "Once more unto the breach , dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead."
- There's fallen between him and my lord / An unkind breach .
- A clear breach''' is when the waves roll over the vessel without breaking. A clean '''breach is when everything on deck is swept away.
- The Lord hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me, as the breach of waters.
- 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.
- The Lord had made a breach upon Uzza.
- breach for breach, eye for eye
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.
- 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;
Synonyms
* break * rift * rupture * gapDerived terms
* breach of contract * breach of promise * breach of the peace * *Verb
(es)- They breached the outer wall, but not the main one.
- "I therefore agree with the Court that the Government did breach its contract with petitioners in failing to approve, within 30 days of its receipt, the plan of exploration petitioners submitted."