breaker

Etymology 1

From Middle English breker, brekere, equivalent to break + -er. Cognate with Dutch breker, German Brecher.

noun

1. Something that breaks.
2. A machine for breaking rocks, or for breaking coal at the mines.
3. The building in which such a machine is placed.
4. A person who specializes in breaking things.
5. (chiefly in the plural) A wave breaking into foam against the shore, or against a sandbank, or a rock or reef near the surface, considered a useful warning to ships of an underwater hazard
   And then went down to the ship, Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea 1925, Ezra Pound, Canto I
   There came a cry "Oh, there be breakers dead ahead!" / From the collier Nightingale 1979, Stan Rogers (lyrics and music), “The Flowers of Bermuda” (track 6), in Between the Breaks ... Live!, Dundas, Ontario: Fogarty's Cove Music
6. (colloquial) A breakdancer.
7. (US, dated) A user of CB radio.
   Their radios had been blocked by a breaker calling himself Yankee Bucket Mouth. 2015, Dave Wise, Stuart Wise, Like A Summer With A Thousand Julys
8. (primarily plural) Clipping of shipbreaker.
9. (electrical engineering) Ellipsis of circuit breaker.
   breaker panel
10. A horsebreaker.
    1831-1850, William Youatt, On the Structure and the Diseases of the Horse A hasty and passionate breaker will often make a really goodtempered young horse an inveterate gibber

intj

1. (US, dated) Used to open a conversation or call for a response on CB radio.
   Breaker one nine
   Breaker to the Bandit 1977, Smokey and the Bandit, spoken by Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason)

Etymology 2

Probably from Spanish barrica (“barrel”). Doublet of barrique.

noun

1. A small cask of liquid kept permanently in a ship's boat in case of shipwreck.