breakthrough

American  

[brayk-throo] / ˈbreɪkˌθru /

noun

• breakthroughs
  plural

1. a military movement or advance all the way through and beyond an enemy's frontline defense.

2. an act or instance of removing or surpassing an obstruction or restriction; the overcoming of a stalemate.

   The president reported a breakthrough in the treaty negotiations.

3. any significant or sudden advance, development, achievement, or increase, as in scientific knowledge or diplomacy, that removes a barrier to progress.

   The jet engine was a major breakthrough in air transport.

4. Medicine/Medical. an infection, disease, disorder, or condition that occurs in an individual despite their having received a vaccine, medication, or treatment.

   Covid breakthroughs are usually less severe than infections in unvaccinated people, indicating that the vaccine is still doing its job of combating the virus.

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adjective

1. constituting a breakthrough: Critics called it a breakthrough film.

   Their products are engineered with breakthrough technology.

   Critics called it a breakthrough film.

2. Medicine/Medical. relating to or being an infection, disease, disorder, or condition that occurs as a breakthrough: She experienced disabling breakthrough pain despite the high dose of painkillers she was taking.

   In the original vaccine trial, 89% of breakthrough infections were with a particular family of virus strains.

   She experienced disabling breakthrough pain despite the high dose of painkillers she was taking.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• breakthroughs
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of breakthrough

First recorded in 1915–20; noun use of verb phrase break through

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Explanation

An amazing discovery or a huge amount of progress can be called a breakthrough. The discovery of penicillin in 1928 was a breakthrough for modern medicine. A personal breakthrough might be overcoming your fear of spiders once and for all. A bigger breakthrough, one that affects many people, is the invention of indoor plumbing. There's a sense of suddenness and drama associated with most breakthroughs. The word started out with a military meaning of literally "breaking through a barrier" in 1918. By the 1930s, it came to have the second meaning of "abrupt solution."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

breakthrough breakthroughs

But you don’t need to wait for the next breakthrough.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 13, 2026

The breakthrough, led by Professor Jaeyune Ryu of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Seoul National University College of Engineering, could help make chemical manufacturing safer, cleaner, and more efficient.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 12, 2026

Mitte, who grew up in Louisiana, was a young teen when he auditioned for the breakthrough role after moving to Los Angeles to support his younger sister's acting career in 2005.

From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026

The real breakthrough will happen when robust AI models run on smartphones.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2026

Elizebeth’s first breakthrough came when she decided “to attack from the ends of messages.”

From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield

Scientific breakthroughs, technological innovations and works of artistic genius can remain dormant for many years.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai were awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for breakthroughs within asymmetric synthesis that have helped advance the development of modern pharmaceuticals.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026

But there were no joint statements and few major breakthroughs.

From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026

"For anybody who studies pathogenic bacteria, it's always in the back of our minds that antibiotics are one of the most important breakthroughs in medicine in the 20th century," Barber said.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2026

Recent breakthroughs in physics, made possible in part by fantastic new technologies, suggest answers to some of these longstanding questions.

From "A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays" by Stephen Hawking

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Related Words

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