breakdown

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act or process of failing to function or continue.
• noun The condition resulting from this.
• noun Electricity The abrupt failure of an insulator or insulating medium to restrict the flow of current.
• noun A typically sudden collapse in physical or mental health.
• noun An analysis, an outline, or a summary consisting of itemized data or essentials.
• noun Disintegration or decomposition into parts or elements.
• noun A noisy, energetic American country dance.
• noun The music for this dance.
• noun A popular dance originating in the early 1970s, performed to funk music.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A falling apart, as of a carriage; a downfall; a crash; hence, a failure; a collapse.
• noun A noisy, lively dance, sometimes accompanied by singing, as in the southern United States.
• Used or employed in repairing a breakdown, specifically in the railway service: as, a breakdown crew; a breakdown train. Called wrecking-train, etc., in the United States.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act or result of breaking down, as of a carriage; downfall.
• noun U.S., U.S. A noisy, rapid, shuffling dance engaged in competitively by a number of persons or pairs in succession, as among the colored people of the Southern United States, and so called, perhaps, because the exercise is continued until most of those who take part in it break down.
• noun U.S. Any rude, noisy dance performed by shuffling the feet, usually by one person at a time.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A failure, particularly mechanical; something that has failed
• noun A physical collapse or lapse of mental stability
• noun Listing, division or categorization in great detail
• noun chemistry Breaking of chemical bonds within a compound to produce simpler compounds or elements.
• noun A musical technique, by where the music is stripped down, becoming simpler, and can vary in heaviness depending on the genre.
• noun sports A loss of organization (of the parts of a system).
• noun US, dated A noisy, rapid, shuffling dance engaged in competitively by a number of persons or pairs in succession, as among the blacks of the southern United States.
• noun US, dated Any crude, noisy dance performed by shuffling the feet, usually by one person at a time.
• noun US Any rapid bluegrass dance tune, especially featuring a five-string banjo.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a mental or physical breakdown
• noun a cessation of normal operation
• noun an analysis into mutually exclusive categories
• noun the act of disrupting an established order so it fails to continue
• verb lose control of one's emotions
• verb make a mathematical, chemical, or grammatical analysis of; break down into components or essential features
• verb stop operating or functioning
• verb fall apart
• verb collapse due to fatigue, an illness, or a sudden attack
• verb make ineffective
• verb cause to fall or collapse
• verb separate (substances) into constituent elements or parts