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housebreak

[hous-breyk]
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verb (used with object), house·broke, house·bro·ken, house·break·ing.

to train (a pet) to excrete outdoors or in a specific place.

RELATED WORDS

robbery, heist, crime, larceny, theft, break-in, burglary, pilfer, kidnap, swipe, remove, keep, plunder, take, strip, embezzle, loot, abduct, divert, ransack

Nearby words

  1. house-trained,
  2. house-warming,
  3. houseboat,
  4. housebound,
  5. houseboy,
  6. housebreaker,
  7. housebreaking,
  8. housebroken,
  9. housecarl,
  10. housecat

Origin of housebreak

First recorded in 1895–1900; house + break
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for housebreaking

British Dictionary definitions for housebreaking

housebreaking

noun

criminal law the act of entering a building as a trespasser for an unlawful purpose. Assimilated with burglary, 1968
Derived Formshousebreaker, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for housebreaking

housebreak

v.

1820, "to break into a house criminally;" see house (n.) + break (v.). Perhaps a back-formation from housebreaker, attested from mid-14c. Sense of "to train a domestic animal to be clean in the house" is from 1881. Related: Housebreaking; housebroken.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper