Breast
to meet, with the breast; to struggle with or oppose manfully; as, to breast the storm or waves. The court breasted the popular current by sustaining the demurrer. (Wirt) to breast up a hedge, to cut the face of it on one side so as to lay bare the principal upright stems of the plants.
Origin: Breasted; Breasted.
1. The fore part of the body, between the neck and the belly; the chest; as, the breast of a man or of a horse.
2. Either one of the protuberant glands, situated on the front of the chest or thorax in the female of man and of some other mammalia, in which milk is secreted for the nourishment of the young; a mammma; a teat. My brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother. (Cant. Viii. 1)
3. Anything resembling the human breast, or bosom; the front or forward part of anything; as, a chimney breast; a plow breast; the breast of a hill. Mountains on whose barren breast The laboring clouds do often rest. (Milton)
4. (Science: chemical) The face of a coal working. The front of a furnace.
5. The seat of consciousness; the repository of thought and self-consciousness, or of secrets; the seat of the affections and passions; the heart. He has a loyal breast. (Shak)
6. The power of singing; a musical voice; so called, probably, from the connection of the voice w
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ith the lungs, which lie within the breast. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. (Shak) breast drill, a portable drilling machine, provided with a breastplate, for forcing the drill against the work. Breast pang. See angina pectoris, under angina. To make a clean breast, to disclose the secrets which weigh upon one; to make full confession.
Origin: oe. Brest, breost, as. Breost; akin to Icel. Brjst, Sw. Brost, dan. Bryst, goth. Brusts, os. Briost, D. Borst, g. Brust.
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