Other forms: breached, breaches, breaching
To breach is to break through a barrier, or to break the terms of an agreement. Breach the wall, breach the contract, breach of trust.
The legal use is much the commoner: breach of contract, breach of duty, in breach of the rules. A data breach is unauthorised access to information and is now a standard phrase. As a noun, a breach is also a gap made by breaking through — a breach in the defences. Note step into the breach, meaning to take over in an emergency, from Shakespeare's Henry V.
1verbbreachTo break the terms of an agreement or rule.
“They breached the contract in about the third month.”
synonyms: violate, contravene
2verbbarrierTo break through a barrier.
“The water breached the bank in two places.”
3noungapA breaking of rules, or a gap made by breaking through.
“Water poured through a breach in the flood wall.”
Also accepted in games: violate
Old English bryce means a fracture, from the same root as break. Breach, break and brittle are one family, and the legal sense is a metaphor from a wall with a hole in it.
Proto-Germanic
*brukiz — breach, fissure
Proto-West Germanic
*bruki
Old English
bryċe — fracture, breach
Middle English
breche
English, today
breach
Built from
From Middle English breche, from Old English bryċe (“fracture, breach”) and brǣċ (“breach, breaking, destruction”), from Proto-West Germanic bruki, from Proto-Germanic brukiz (“breach, fissure”) and brēkō (“breaking”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sharper Verbs