breakage

[brey-kij]

See more synonyms for breakage on Thesaurus.com

noun

the act of breaking; state of being broken.
the amount or quantity of things broken: There was a great deal of breakage in that shipment of glassware.
an allowance or compensation for the loss or damage of articles broken in transit or in use.

the money accrued by a racetrack from calculating the payoff to winning pari-mutuel bettors only in multiples of dimes for each dollar bet.

Origin of breakage

First recorded in 1805–15; break + -age

Related formsre·break·age, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for breakage

ruination, wreckage, deterioration

Examples from the Web for breakage

Contemporary Examples of breakage

So raucous did the celebration get that City Tavern took the unusual step of sending along a bill for “breakage.”
Life, Liberty, and the Founding Fathers’ Pursuit of Hoppiness
Kevin Bleyer
July 4, 2014

Historical Examples of breakage

This liability to breakage is reduced, but not eliminated, by the asbestos annealing.
On Laboratory Arts
Richard Threlfall
Abruptly, from the mizzen-mast, came a snap of breakage and crash of fabric.
The Mutiny of the Elsinore
Jack London
He could afford to pay for the breakage; he would laugh at dismissal.
Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories
Bret Harte
Sometimes the hook tears out, but most fish are lost by breakage.
Fishing in British Columbia
Thomas Wilson Lambert
These were large and sound, and were more than a foot in diameter at the points of breakage.
Wild Life on the Rockies
Enos A. Mills

British Dictionary definitions for breakage

breakage

noun

the act or result of breaking
the quantity or amount brokenthe total breakage was enormous
compensation or allowance for goods damaged while in use, transit, etc

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for breakage

1813, "action of breaking," from break (v.) + -age. Meaning "loss or damage done by breaking" is from 1848.