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

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 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

The breakthrough can be traced to research Messing conducted with Michael Brenner, professor emeritus of neurobiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026

"The real breakthrough won't come until these systems are not merely capable of translating but also of telling us when they're not sure," Yvon says.

From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026

He had written to his wife that he had made a breakthrough discovery about Vermeer’s work and was then silenced before he could share it.

From "Chasing Vermeer" by Blue Balliett

Many experts, from Microsoft to McKinsey, have pointed to materials-science breakthroughs as a key way in which AI could help cut emissions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

"Watching the awareness grow around disability representation has been great to see, but breakthroughs sometimes come in pieces and moments instead of larger change," he said.

From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026

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

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 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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