Brake

How to spell brake

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce brake

What does brake mean?

1. nounA device for slowing or stopping a moving vehicle or machine.
2. verbTo slow or stop a vehicle by using its braking system.

Brake in a sentence

• noun

  The mechanic warned that the rear brake was worn down to the metal.

• verb

  She had to brake hard when the deer ran across the road.

• noun

  He pressed the brake gently as the traffic light turned red.

• verb

  Good drivers learn to brake smoothly well before a junction.

Where does brake come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

The word brake has a tangled history with more than one early sense feeding into it. The modern meaning, a device that slows or stops a vehicle, appears to descend from a Middle Low German and Middle Dutch word braeke, which named a heavy lever-operated tool used to crush or break flax. The link is the idea of a strong arm or bar that bears down with force, and by the 1700s the same notion was applied to the lever that checked the motion of a carriage wheel. As coaches gave way to bicycles, trains and motor cars, the word followed the technology and settled into its present form. Crucially, brake is a homophone of break, and although the two have separate roots, their similar shape and sound make the spelling a frequent slip; remembering that a car has a brake with the same -ake ending as 'cake' can help fix the right form.

How the word is built

• brake (from Middle Low German/Middle Dutch braeke, a tool for crushing; later applied to a stopping device)

Words that sound like brake

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• break: To separate something into pieces, damage it, or cause it to stop working, by force or stress.