breakthrough

American  

[breyk-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

Etymology

Origin of breakthrough

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

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

I’m not saying that these people have ill intent, but I do believe that words have a lot of power and the words we use to communicate can make a breakthrough.

From Salon ● Jul. 20, 2026

The surprise release of a breakthrough artificial-intelligence model from China intensified a selloff in chip stocks on Friday, fueling concerns about competition in AI and massive corporate spending that underpins its build-out.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

"The chances of a breakthrough in Rome are quite limited," Karim Bitar, a lecturer at Sciences Po Paris, told AFP.

From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 2026

One of his main breakthrough roles was filmed in the UK in the early 1980s, when he appeared as Damien Thorn, son of the devil, in the supernatural horror Omen III: The Final Conflict.

From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026

As Khrushchev recognized, the foundation was laid for a breakthrough.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

There won’t be “experts on everything in every state,” said Hughes, so patients who are able will seek out the latest breakthroughs and best care.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2026

After over a decade of heavy investment and technical breakthroughs, China has developed a key foothold in a famously volatile market.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 18, 2026

Some breakthroughs in physics come from brand new inventions.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 17, 2026

Productivity-driven economic growth is the most promising path to fiscal stability, but betting pension solvency on technological breakthroughs is a hope, not a strategy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026

Then I thought about another Joe McCormick discovery, one of the few breakthroughs in the treatment of Ebola virus.

From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston

Related Words

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