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

A viable alternative to wood fiber would be a scientific breakthrough that could reshape the consumer-products landscape.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026

A breakthrough came after finding a hidden set of original plans in a cabinet.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2026

Detectives said DNA evidence, surveillance footage and other forensic material remain under review, and more than $1 million in reward money is still being offered for information leading to a breakthrough.

From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2026

This clause still sounds like a significant breakthrough.

From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026

The precise details of the model still needed to be worked out—the A:T and G:C pairs still needed to be placed inside the skeleton of the helix—but the nature of the breakthrough was clear.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Achrekar called on pharmaceutical firms which make a range of new drugs seen as breakthroughs "accessible and affordable to all".

From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026

The laboratory allows researchers to conduct experiments and achieve scientific breakthroughs that would not be possible under conditions on Earth.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 27, 2026

GLP-1s have been hailed as miracle drugs, their rise leading to critical breakthroughs in America’s fight against obesity.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026

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

All along, amazing breakthroughs had been taking place as a result of space science.

From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson

Related Words

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