WordWeb Online

1. A braking device consisting of a combination of interacting parts that work to slow a motor vehicle
   "the mechanic's failure to check the brakes";
   - brake system

1. A restraint used to slow or stop a vehicle
    
2. Any of various ferns of the genus Pteris having pinnately compound leaves and including several popular houseplants
    
3. Large coarse fern often several feet high; essentially weed ferns; cosmopolitan
   - bracken, pasture brake, Pteridium aquilinum
    
4. An area thickly overgrown usually with one kind of plant
    
5. Anything that slows or hinders a process
   "she was not ready to put the brakes on her life with a marriage"; "new legislation will put the brakes on spending"
    
6. (historical) an open four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage

1. (driving) stop travelling by applying a brake
   "We had to brake suddenly when a chicken crossed the road"
    
2. (driving) cause to stop by applying the brakes
   "brake the car before you go into a curve"

Sounds like: breaks

Type of: brush, brushwood, constraint, coppice, copse, fern, halt, restraint, stop, thicket

Part of: automotive vehicle, genus Pteridium, genus Pteris, motor vehicle, Pteridium, Pteris, wheeled vehicle

Encyclopedia: Brakes