breasting

American  

[bres-ting] / ˈbrɛs tɪŋ /

noun

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

---

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

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

The sea god Neptune takes retribution by sending a monster who advances “across the expanse of ocean, breasting the surge of the waves” to devour Andromeda.

From Washington Post

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