With proofreading, it’s important to take things slowly. But if you need to slow down, do you apply the ‘brakes’ or apply the ‘breaks’? If you’re not sure, let’s take a look at what these words mean!
To ‘brake’ is to slow down or stop something (usually a vehicle). For instance:
The bus driver braked as he saw the snake.
A device used to slow a vehicle down is also known as a ‘brake’ (e.g. the ‘parking brake’ in a car).
People sometimes use this word figuratively, but it still means slow down. For example, we might ‘put the brakes’ on a project to do more planning.
The simple past tense and past participle versions of this word are both ‘braked’.
‘Break’ has quite a few meanings in different situations. As a verb, these include:
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As a noun, moreover, the word ‘break’ can mean:
The past tense and past participle forms of this word are ‘broke’ and ‘broken’ respectively (not ‘breaked’). This is because ‘break’ is an irregular verb. In addition, ‘break’ is used in a number of phrases, such as ‘a tough break’ (i.e. bad luck) and ‘break bread’ (i.e. eat together).
Since ‘brake’ only has one common meaning, you can avoid errors as long as you know that this term refers to slowing something down (usually a car or vehicle). In almost any other situation, such as damaging or interrupting something, the correct word will be ‘break’. Remember:
Brake = Slow down or stop (or a device for doing this)
Break = Damage, violate or interrupt something
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