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

Last week, he had a breakthrough performance, finishing third among 117 drivers representing 33 countries at the FIA Karting World Cup OK-N Junior Final at Leopard Circuit Viterbo, Italy.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 18, 2026

Rod Serling’s television breakthrough, the collapse of Weimar Germany, Edward Hopper’s lonely vision and more.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026

The Manhattan Project, the secret American effort to develop nuclear weapons during World War II, was driven partly by the possibility that Nazi Germany might achieve a similar breakthrough first.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026

The top-selling author has been accused of using AI to write his breakthrough French-language novel about migration titled "C'etait ca ou mourir," which was set to be translated in more than 20 countries.

From Barron's ● Oct. 14, 2026

Mendeleyev’s breakthrough was to see that the two could be combined in a single table.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

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

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei’s consumer business, said the company has invested heavily to make breakthroughs in screen reliability and camera quality for its foldables.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026

Analysts expect few breakthroughs as trade tensions simmer.

From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2026

But there were no joint statements and few major breakthroughs.

From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026

A girl named Rose says, “Well, because of her cells the medical field had major breakthroughs, like the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, and the creation of drugs that treat leukemia, influenza, and Parkinson’s disease.”

From "Watch Us Rise" by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan

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Related Words

• boost
• development
• discovery
• finding
• gain
• hike
• improvement
• leap
• progress

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