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

After years of clumsy performance, AI models had a breakthrough moment last fall, when they became noticeably better at finding bugs and passing hacking-benchmarking tests.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 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

At the time, they were seen as the largest breakthrough since the 2017 collapse of talks, but there has since been only limited progress on implementation.

From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026

Despite the sharp fall in crude, "there is still significant uncertainty baked into these prices and a reticence about whether negotiations will lead to a lasting breakthrough," she added.

From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026

He had waited so long for his breakthrough, despaired so many times, and he just wanted to be alone for a little while with a pencil and some paper and a calculator and no talking.

From "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green

Once a fatal and terrifying diagnosis, scientific breakthroughs and massive funding efforts have transformed HIV into a manageable disease for millions of people.

From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026

“The hardest thing that science and arguably humanity tries to do is to come up with breakthroughs and important new medicines,” Yancopoulos said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 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

After over a decade of heavy investment and technical breakthroughs, China has developed a key foothold in a famously volatile market.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 18, 2026

With her promise in hand and the prospect of further breakthroughs awaiting him in the lab, he returned to Berkeley in euphoria.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

Related Words

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