handbrake

See also: hand brake

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From hand +‎ brake.

Pronunciation

  • Audio (Southern England):(file)

Noun

handbrake (plural handbrakes)

  1. (mechanical engineering, automotive, rail transport) A brake in a vehicle, set by hand, and usually locking on until released by hand, enabling its use when parked.
    • 1953 August, J. G. Click, “The Lötschberg Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 515:
      On arrival at Spiez, the locomotive (No. 206) was immediately uncoupled and drew ahead to enable an Italian through coach from Interlaken to Milan to be loose shunted (with passengers aboard and controlled by means of its handbrake) on to the front of the train.
  2. (mechanical engineering, automotive, rail transport) The mechanism, particularly the locking hand-operated lever or foot-operated toggle lever in a motorcar or the hand-operated crank on a railcar, which is used to set and release such a brake.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

handbrake (third-person singular simple present handbrakes, present participle handbraking, simple past and past participle handbraked)

  1. To apply the handbrake in a vehicle.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.