What is "break down"

n. (alternative form of breakdown English) vb. 1 (label en intransitive) To fail, to cease to function. 2 (label en ergative figuratively) To render or to become unstable due to stress, to collapse physically or mentally.

1. v. make a mathematical, chemical, or grammatical analysis of; break down into components or essential features; "analyze a specimen"; "analyze a sentence"; "analyze a chemical compound" [syn: analyze, analyse, dissect, take apart] [ant: synthesize]

2. make ineffective; "Martin Luther King tried to break down racial discrimination" [syn: crush]

3. lose control of one's emotions; "When she heard that she had not passed the exam, she lost it completely"; "When her baby died, she snapped" [syn: lose it, snap]

4. stop operating or functioning; "The engine finally went"; "The car died on the road"; "The bus we travelled in broke down on the way to town"; "The coffee maker broke"; "The engine failed on the way to town"; "her eyesight went after the accident" [syn: fail, go bad, give way, die, give out, conk out, go, break]

5. separate (substances) into constituent elements or parts [syn: decompose, break up]

6. fall apart; "the building crimbled after the explosion"; "Negociations broke down" [syn: crumble, crumple, tumble, collapse]

7. cause to fall or collapse

8. collapse due to fatigue, an illness, or a sudden attack [syn: collapse]

Break Down is the debut Korean solo mini album of Kim Hyun-joong of South Korean boy band SS501. It was released on 7 June 2011 under KeyEast Entertainment. A Limited Edition was released on 23 June 2011, with a bonus DVD with music videos and behind-the-scene footages. The album was released in Taiwan by Warner Music Taiwan in two versions: Regular and Commemorate Editions.

Break Down is the second studio album by Mandopop boy group Super Junior-M. It was released online on January 7, 2013 by S.M. Entertainment and distributed by KMP Holdings. It is their first release in nearly 2 years, since the release of their 2011 EP, Perfection, and their first studio album in nearly 5 years, since the release of their first 2008 studio album, Me.

Break Down was an artwork created by Young British Artist Michael Landy in London in February 2001, as a reaction to the consumerist society.

The work was commissioned jointly commissioned by The Times newspaper and Artangel, as part of the Artangel Open bidding process. It was selected from 700 bids by a panel that included Brian Eno, Rachel Whiteread, Richard Cork, James Lingwood and Michael Morris. Another work was a recreation of the Battle of Orgreave by Jeremy Deller.

In February 2001, Landy gathered all his possessions at a former C&A branch at 499 Oxford Street near Marble Arch (now a branch of Primark). Over the previous three years he had catalogued all 7,227 of his possessions, from postage stamps, his passport and birth certificate, to food, clothes (including his father's 1970s sheepskin coat), works of art (including works by Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst), and his Saab 900 Turbo 16 S. The work was arranged into ten categories - artworks, clothing, equipment, furniture, kitchen, leisure, motor vehicle, perishables, reading material and studio material. They were then all destroyed in a two-week period, opened as a public exhibition. The process of destruction was like the reverse of an industrial assembly line, with items circulating in yellow trays on long figure-of-eight conveyor belt. Ten workers systematically removed each item from the convey belt and reduced it to its basic materials by smashing, shredding and pulverising them. The work attracted around 45,000 visitors.

The resulting bags of granulated rubbish weighed nearly 6 tonnes, and were recycled or sent to landfill. None was exhibited or sold. Landy's full inventory was published as a 300-page volume, Break Down Inventory in 2002.

Following the exhibition, Landy was left with no possessions. He did not return to art for a year. In a new project in 2010, Art Bin, Landy invited members of the public to throw away works of art they disliked into a large plastic bin at the South London Gallery.