breakthrough

American  

[breyk-throo] / ˈbreɪkˌθru /

noun

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.

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

Furthermore, analysts believe “the path to commercialization could be even faster now,” seeing as the FDA has been directed to issue priority review vouchers to drug programs with breakthrough therapy designations.

From Barron's • Apr. 20, 2026

The breakthrough came from a change in geometry.

From Science Daily • Apr. 19, 2026

While the network was careful to note that he had not been named a suspect, its minute-by-minute coverage suggested that this could be a major breakthrough.

From Slate • Apr. 19, 2026

The breakthrough only came 12 years later, when Appeal was able to instruct scientists to take the sample and look again.

From BBC • Apr. 17, 2026

It represents an intellectual breakthrough: Digges was the first competent astronomer explicitly to propose an infinite universe.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Related Words

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