breasting

Pluralbreastings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of breast.

   The swimmer kept breasting the heavy current toward the shore.

   Breasting the final ridge, the climbers finally saw the summit.

   Note

   A verb made from the body: to breast something is to meet it chest-first, so this form always takes a direct object, as in breasting the waves or breasting a hill. Two uses live inside it. One is pushing against a force, often figuratively. The other is cresting a rise. Context tells them apart: a swimmer breasts a current, a walker breasts the ridge. Unlike the millwright's noun, it never takes a plural.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   The curved channel in which a breastwheel turns, fitting closely around its lower edge.

   Like a snug stone cradle for a wheel, similar to how a riverbed channels water along a bend.

   The mill's breasting had to be rebuilt after years of water erosion.

   Engineers fitted the new wheel snugly against the curved breasting.

   Note

   Millwrights use this word for the close-fitting curve, usually of masonry, that makes a breastwheel work. Because it hugs the wheel's lower arc, it holds the water against the buckets, so the wheel is driven by the water's weight as well as its push. As a count noun for a built structure it takes a plural, breastings. A mill's breasting is rebuilt or worn away, never performed like the verb form.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2