Other forms: breakers
A breaker is a wave that curls over and collapses. Big breakers, the breakers came in, out beyond the breakers.
Waves break when the water becomes too shallow to carry them, and the shape of the sea floor decides whether they spill gently or plunge. Breakers are what surfers ride and what swimmers are warned about. Elsewhere, a breaker is a circuit breaker, the switch that cuts an electrical supply on a fault. Note breakwater, which is the wall built to stop them; and record-breaker.
1nounbreakerA wave that curls over and collapses.
“Huge breakers crashed onto the rocks during the storm.”
2nounswitchA switch that cuts an electrical supply on a fault.
“The lights went out, so Dad went down to the cellar to reset the breaker.”
breaker is a breaking wave or switch.
The word is break plus -er. Old English brecan is Germanic and related to Latin frangere, which gives fragile and fracture — the f and b are the regular sound correspondence.
Middle English
breker
English, today
breaker
From Middle English breker, brekere, equivalent to break + er. Cognate with Dutch breker, German Low German Breker, German Brecher.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA