Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A strip of land that has been cleared, plowed, or planted with fire-resistant vegetation to prevent a fire from spreading.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun a narrow field that has been cleared to check the spread of a prairie fire or forest fire.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An area cleared of all
flammable material to prevent a fire from spreading across it.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a narrow field that has been cleared to check the spread of a prairie fire or forest fire
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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A firebreak, which is regularly maintained, has been established around the reserve.
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The third way was to just try to clearcut and soak a firebreak around the town.
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The third way was to just try to clearcut and soak a firebreak around the town.
Archive 2008-02-01 2008
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They all agreed OP2 did create a "firebreak" and that action was suspended - and that Iraq's full compliance henceforth was what everything would turn on.
Giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Tony Blair said: “I... 2010
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Greenspan had called for a "firebreak" against deflation and numerous Fed officials, including Greenspan and Bernanke, had raised the prospect of buying Treasury bonds to influence long-term rates.
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There is simply no way for us "as a society" to create the kind of firebreak you are envisioning.
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In 2011 we're going to need some kind of firebreak to the eurozone sovereign debt crisis.
BBC News - Home 2010
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This was our firebreak, our last best hope of survival.
365 tomorrows » Sam Clough : A New Free Flash Fiction SciFi Story Every Day 2009
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This was our firebreak, our last best hope of survival.
365 tomorrows » 2009 » March : A New Free Flash Fiction SciFi Story Every Day 2009
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The politicians have not created a big enough firebreak, so each time the bushfire has jumped the firebreak and it is now getting closer to the houses.
CBI boss accuses eurozone of failing to stop 'bushfire' 2011
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