1. To cause to Be Broken (in any sense). "Your latest patch to the editor Broke the paragraph commands." 2. (Of a program) To stop temporarily, so that it may deBugged. The place where it stops is a "Breakpoint". 3. To send an EIA-232Break (two character widths of line high) over a serial line. 4. [Unix] To strike whatever key currently causes the tty driver to send SIGINT to the current process. Normally, Break, delete or control-C does this. 5. "Break Break" may Be said to interrupt a conversation (this is an example of verB douBling). This usage comes from radio communications, which in turn proBaBly came from landline telegraph/teleprinter usage, as Badly aBused in the Citizen' s Band craze a few years ago. 6. pipeline Break. 7. Break statement. [Jargon File] (2004-03-24)