Word.ws English Dictionary

brake check

brake check verb: to deliberately brake in an unexpected place to hinder or startle the driver behind.

Verb

brake check (third-person singular simple present brake checks, present participle brake checking, simple past and past participle brake checked)

  1. (informal, intransitive, transitive) To deliberately brake in an unexpected place to hinder or startle the driver behind.
    • The CHP said it’s seeing an increase in reports of people being more aggressive on the road. “If somebody honks, they’ll honk back. If somebody cuts them off, they will brake check and they will go back and forth,” said Officer Ceja.2020, Renée Santos, “Caught On Camera: Driver ‘Brake Checks’ Vehicle, Causing Driver To Lose Control On Highway 50”, in CBS Sacramento
    Synonyms:
    brake test

Synonyms of brake check

Forms of brake check

third-person singular presentbrake checks
present participlebrake checking
past participlebrake checked
pastbrake checked
alternative formbrake-check

Questions about brake check

What does brake check mean?
Brake check means to deliberately brake in an unexpected place to hinder or startle the driver behind.
What part of speech is brake check?
Brake check is a verb.
What is the past tense of brake check?
The past tense of brake check is brake checked.

Words near brake check in the dictionary

  1. brake assembly
  2. brake bias
  3. brake biases
  4. brake block
  5. brake blocks
  6. brake check
  7. brake checked
  8. brake checking
  9. brake checks
  10. brake disc
  11. brake discs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brake check (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “brake check.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brake_check. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.