Breakdown may refer to:
- Breakdown (vehicle), failure of a motor vehicle in such a way that it cannot be operated
- Chemical decomposition, also called chemical breakdown, the breakdown of a substance into simpler components
- Decomposition, the process by which tissues of a dead organism break down into simpler forms of matter
- Drop set, also called a breakdown, a bodybuilding and weight training technique
- Electrical breakdown, the failure of an electric circuit or a rapid reduction in the resistance of an electrical insulator that can lead to a spark
- Mental breakdown, an acute, time-limited phase of exhibiting symptoms of a specific order, most commonly, depression and anxiety.
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Famous quotes containing the word breakdown:
“... what’s been building since the 1980’s is a new kind of social Darwinism that blames poverty and crime and the crisis of our youth on a breakdown of the family. That’s what will last after this flurry on family values.”
—Stephanie Coontz (b. 1944)
“The ideal of brotherhood of man, the building of the Just City, is one that cannot be discarded without lifelong feelings of disappointment and loss. But, if we are to live in the real world, discard it we must. Its very nobility makes the results of its breakdown doubly horrifying, and it breaks down, as it always will, not by some external agency but because it cannot work.”
—Kingsley Amis (1922–1995)
“A bad liver is to a Frenchman what a nervous breakdown is to an American. Everyone has had one and everyone wants to talk about it.”
—Art Buchwald (b. 1925)