breasting

American  

[bres-ting] / ˈbrɛs tɪŋ /

noun

1. a piece of leather or other material for covering the heel breast of a shoe.

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Etymology

Origin of breasting

breast + -ing ¹

Example Sentences

The point is for his team to be playing its best basketball in March, like a sprinter hitting top speed while breasting the finish-line tape.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 1, 2023

Cormorants balancing on the calcified poles of long-abandoned jetties, looked, as they spread their wings to dry in the sun, like runners breasting a tape.

From Washington Post • Mar. 18, 2022

Part of Singapore's reason for dismissing American pedagogy is "navigational" in a geopolitical sense: Lee Hsien Loong likens his country to a small but doughty craft breasting powerful riptides of global economics and politics.

From Salon • Sep. 26, 2021

In Douglas’s case, he leans forward, as if forever grasping the prow of a Viking ship, breasting the waves and building up an appetite for experience.

From The New Yorker • Dec. 9, 2016

Why couldn’t she have come inside the sweet, cool store when we saw them breasting the hill?

From "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou