Word.ws English Dictionary

breather

/ˈbɹiː.ðə(ɹ)/

breather noun: something or someone that breathes.

Noun

breather (plural breathers)

  1. Something or someone that breathes.
    1. (specifically) A heavy breather.
      • Most of us make sense of the world through talk and sight, and breathers represent that most anxiety provoking experience, nothingness with a hint of possibility.1981 April 25, Martin H. Krieger, “Phone Calls”, in Gay Community News, page 12
  2. (colloquial) A short break; a rest or respite.
    • After a short breather she was ready to continue up the hill.
    • I took a breather and decided not to ruin my life2025, “Spike Island”, in More, performed by Pulp
    Synonyms:
    hiatus
  3. A spatially localized, time-periodic excitation in a one-dimensional lattice.
  4. (colloquial, dated) That which puts one out of breath, such as vigorous exercise.
  5. An air inlet path to the crankcase

breather meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam and Kannada

breather in Tamil

உயிர்ப்புத் தொட்டி, மூச்சிழுத்தல், மூச்சு உயிர்ப்பி

breather in Marathi

something that breathes
श्वसक śvasak
short break
विश्रांती viśrāntī

breather in Malayalam

respite, break, rest
തൽക്കാല ആശ്വാസം, ഇടയ്ക്കുള്ള അല്പവിരാമം, ഒഴിവ്, ഇളവ്, എളവ്, ലഘുവിശ്രമത്തിനുള്ള അവസരം

breather in Kannada

ಅಲ್ಪವಿರಾಮ, ಲಘು ವಿಶ್ರಾಂತಿ

Examples of breather in a sentence

  • Why don't we stop and take a breather before we continue?
  • The first breather of the day came when Naomi brought some gingered lemonade out to the barn.
  • Tamina rolls to the outside to catch a breather, but Kaitlyn catches her with a baseball slide.

All 14 example sentences with breather

Synonyms of breather

Forms of breather

pluralbreathers

Plural of breather: breathers

Origin of breather

From breathe + -er (agent noun suffix) or + -er (relational noun suffix).

Words formed from breather

Phrases with breather

Questions about breather

What does breather mean?
Breather means something or someone that breathes.
What is breather in Tamil?
Breather in Tamil is உயிர்ப்புத் தொட்டி, மூச்சிழுத்தல், மூச்சு உயிர்ப்பி. See Breather meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is breather?
Breather is a noun.
How do you pronounce breather?
Breather is pronounced /ˈbɹiː.ðə(ɹ)/ (UK).
What is the plural of breather?
The plural of breather is breathers.

Words near breather in the dictionary

  1. breathed one's last
  2. breathed one's last breath
  3. breathed out
  4. breathed upon
  5. breathedst
  6. breather
  7. breather switch
  8. breathers
  9. breathes
  10. breathes a sigh of relief
  11. breathes a word

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: breather (page history and authors); breather (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); breather (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); breather (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-breather.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-breather.wav.

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