The Collaborative International Dictionary
Breasting \Breast"ing\, n. (Mach.) The curved channel in which a breast wheel turns. It is closely adapted to the curve of the wheel through about a quarter of its circumference, and prevents the escape of the water until it has spent its force upon the wheel. See Breast wheel.
Breast \Breast\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Breasted; p. pr. & vb. n. Breasting.] To meet, with the breast; to struggle with or oppose manfully; as, to breast the storm or waves.
The court breasted the popular current by sustaining
the demurrer.
--Wirt.
To breast up a hedge, to cut the face of it on one side so as to lay bare the principal upright stems of the plants.
Wiktionary
n. (context engineering English) The curved channel in which a breastwheel turns. vb. (present participle of breast English)
Usage examples of "breasting".
Wet to the skin, bedrabbled with mud, exhausted with breasting the gale, we stood for a moment under the porch to regain our breath, then with her characteristic energy she lifted the knocker and struck a smart blow on the door.
To his left the rising sun was breasting the blue peaks of the eastern mountains.
While I was thus breasting strange winds, One gathered me up, taking me back into Oneness, and presently We knew what my whole life had been since I lay in the egg.
After a short but determined breasting of the storm, during which my breath had nearly failed me, she suddenly stopped.
The two sides pressed endlessly forward, breasting the yellow mist like a tide, with no place for caution or second thoughts.
The ship ceased not sailing till they came to a narrow strait, where the sea was but a river between fair sloping hills alight with towers and palaces, opening a way to a great city that was in its radiance over the waters of the sea as the aspect of myriad sheeny white doves breasting the wave.