A Quick and Simple Dictionary

brake

1. Noun.  A device used to slow or stop a vehicle, by friction; often installed on the wheels, then often in the plural.
2. Noun.  Something that slows or stops an action.
3. Noun.  (nautical) The handle, manned by up to six men, by which a ship's pump was worked.
4. Noun.  A type of machine for bending sheet metal. (See wikipedia.).
5. Noun.  (obsolete) A specific torture instrument.
6. Verb.  (intransitive) To operate (a) brake(s).
7. Verb.  (intransitive) To be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking.
8. Verb.  (transitive) To bruise and crush; to knead.
9. Verb.  (transitive) To pulverise with a harrow.
10. Noun.  A fern type, bracken.
11. Noun.  A canebreak.
12. Noun.  A thicket, or an area overgrown with briers etc.
13. Noun.  A four-wheeled carriage type.
14. Verb.  (archaic) (past of, break) .