Definition of "breakaway"

Nor is it true, although it has been suggested as true, that I am in favour of breakaway or splinter unions—

1946, William Brown, Hansard, 19 November, 1946, Trade Unions Closed Shop

As Actaeon turned, Melanchaetes / The ringleader of this breakaway trio / Grabbed a rear ankle / In the trap of his jaws.

1997, Ted Hughes, “Actaeon”, in Tales from Ovid, London: Faber & Faber, page 111, lines 144–147

[…] the Sunday Times said some 20 MPs are ready to form a breakaway party if Mrs Leadsom is elected as leader over Home Secretary Theresa May […]

2016 July 10, “Iain Duncan Smith claims 'black ops' bid to 'denigrate' Leadsom”, in BBC News

In Hollywood, rehearsing for his show, Red Skelton plunged headlong into a "breakaway" door. It didn't break, and Red was hospitalized with concussion and a mild case of shock.

1954 August 30, “The Week in Review”, in Time

In a league starved for scoring, the challenge ensures that some super-sweet breakaway goals will be overturned because a dude was three microns offside.

2016, Scott Feschuk, "Counting down the most annoying in video review, by sport," sportsnet.ca, 10 July, 2016

The New York quintet call themselves Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, and their RCA debut LP is this season's breakaway disco act.

1976 November 1, “Sass and Class”, in Time

In that season, NBC added another first-year breakaway hit, Friends.

1996 November 14, Bill Carter, “So Many New Shows, but Not One Hit”, in The New York Times

When Rihanna released her rebellious breakaway album Anti, it marked a definitive turning point in the singer's career.

2016, Chris Riotta, "Rihanna's 'Anti' Has Extensive Alternative Music Career," mic.com, 11 February, 2016

[…] this Finance Bill represents a definite breakaway from the old practice of mass bribing, vote catching, and political Finance Bills which we were in grave danger of establishing as a permanent part of our national activities.

1932, Alan Lennox-Boyd, Hansard, 10 May, 1932, Finance Bill

If the horse had been any good—or if he had known how to get any good out of the horse—he would have risked everything on a breakaway and a wild gallop.

1954, C. S. Lewis, chapter 11, in The Horse and His Boy, Collins, published 1998

Following a breakaway of the test train near Huntingdon during final trials, the start of the London-Newcastle-Edinburgh "Roadrailer" service scheduled for August 19 was postponed.

1963 September, Modern Railways, page 146

During all that time, the French-speaking province of Quebec demanded additional powers to preserve its language and unique culture, while separatist pressure, generated by the Parti Quebecois, threatened breakaway if the demands were frustrated.

1992 December 21, Michael S. Serrill, “Back On Track”, in Time

[…] the adoption of the veil by Muslim women in West European countries is often justified as a mark of their autonomy, a breakaway from the sexualizing influences of Western culture.

2011, Jeffrey Weeks, The Languages of Sexuality, Routledge, page 158

The summit of the climb came 38km from the end of stage 14, which began in Limoux and ended in Foix in the foothills of the Pyrenees, and the incident occurred as the peloton emerged into the light and passed under the banner at the top, a quarter of an hour behind a five-man breakaway.

2012 July 15, Richard Williams, Tour de France 2012: Carpet tacks cannot force Bradley Wiggins off track‎, Guardian Unlimited

With the game tied 1-1 early in the third, Henrik got free on a breakaway and was stopped by Oilers goalie Anders Nilsson […]

2015, Eric MacKenzie, "Canucks fall 2-1 to Oilers in OT," vancouver24hrs.ca, 18 October, 2015

The gong sounded almost immediately after the breakaway.

2011, Colleen Aycock and Mark Scott (eds.), The First Black Boxing Champions: Essays on Fighters of the 1800s to the 1920s, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Appendix: The Great Fights, George Dixon vs. Jack Skelly (September 6, 1892), p. 262

The smartest stock horse that ever brought his rider up within whip distance of a breakaway or dodged the horns of a sulky beast, took the chance.

1893, The Argus, 29 April, 1893, p. 4, col. 4, cited in Edward Ellis Morris, Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages, 1898

He was forced to slow to a walking pace in order to negotiate a rack of deep breakaways.

2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 353

After watching some older kids try out for the New York City Parks Department's yo-yo championship, Stephen Awerman, an eleven-year-old from Jamaica, L.I., decided that he could hold his own with the big boys. He spun his yo-yo through the required figures—spinner, walking-the-dog, breakaway […] —then unreeled 312 loop-the-loops to latch onto the title.

1958 August 5, “Scoreboard”, in Time

EFFECT […] This usually refers to special effects such as flash pots, torches, crashes, breakaways, etc.

1980, Robert Anderson, Theatre Talk, page 19