Noun: breakthrough
| Singular | breakthrough |
| Plural | breakthroughs |
Sample Sentences
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Albert Einstein is credited with making some of the greatest breakthroughs in modern physics.
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In [Raymond] Kurzweil’s future, biotechnology and nanotechnology give us the power to manipulate our bodies and the world around us at will, at the molecular level. Progress hyperaccelerates, and every hour brings a century’s worth of scientific breakthroughs. [2011 February 10, Lev Grossman, “2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal”, in Time, New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 21 Mar 2025:]
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"Secondly, we have to find more cost-effective ways of electrifying. And we've had a real breakthrough in the last couple of years in terms of bridge clearances and immunisation, meaning we've been able to take hundreds of millions of pounds off the cost of electrification. [2020 May 20, Andrew Haines talks to Stefanie Foster, “Repurpose rail for the 2020s”, in Rail, page 33:]
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But with the lively Dos Santos pulling the strings behind strikers Pavlyuchenko and Defoe, Spurs controlled the first half without finding the breakthrough their dominance deserved. [2011 September 29, Jon Smith, “Tottenham 3 - 1 Shamrock Rovers”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 08 Dec 2022:]
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She was on two antiepileptics for five years but then had a breakthrough seizure.
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He was managing his discomfort with common painkillers, but one morning he had breakthrough pain causing him to miss work.
Nouns inflected like breakthrough
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From break + through. Compare German Durchbruch and Dutch doorbraak (“breakthrough”, literally “through-break”). See: German Nouns '
Durchbruch', Dutch Nouns '
doorbraak'.