| Library / English Dictionary |
BRINK
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The limit beyond which something happens or changes
Example:
on the brink of bankruptcy
Synonyms:
brink; verge
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("brink" is a kind of...):
bound; boundary; limit (the greatest possible degree of something)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The edge of a steep place
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Hypernyms ("brink" is a kind of...):
border; edge (the boundary of a surface)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A region marking a boundary
Synonyms:
brink; threshold; verge
Classified under:
Nouns denoting two and three dimensional shapes
Hypernyms ("brink" is a kind of...):
bound; boundary; edge (a line determining the limits of an area)
Context examples:
Even when cells are at the brink of death, they are secretly enriching survival RNAs.
(Cells Back from Brink of Death, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
Twice she thrust forward at it, and twice she drew back, until at last, giving up in despair, she sat herself down by the brink and wrung her hands wearily.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
With my face over the brink, I saw him fall for a long way.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“My dear Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, “yourself and Mr. Traddles find us on the brink of migration, and will excuse any little discomforts incidental to that position.”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
You may conceive my astonishment on hearing such a question addressed to me from a man on the brink of destruction and to whom I should have supposed that my vessel would have been a resource which he would not have exchanged for the most precious wealth the earth can afford.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
It little mattered whether my curiosity irritated him; I knew the pleasure of vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct always prevented me from going too far; beyond the verge of provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well to try my skill.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
And as the dwarf came to the brink of it, he saw the two ducks whose lives he had saved swimming about; and they dived down and soon brought in the key from the bottom.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
After walking some time in this way, the two ladies in front, the two gentlemen behind, on resuming their places, after descending to the brink of the river for the better inspection of some curious water-plant, there chanced to be a little alteration.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
"We want to know whether a cell recovering from the brink of death retains a permanent epigenetic memory of the experience," Montell said.
(Cells Back from Brink of Death, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
If she were not true to it, might the object she now had in life, which bound her to something devoid of evil, in its passing away from her, leave her more forlorn and more despairing, if that were possible, than she had been upon the river's brink that night; and then might all help, human and Divine, renounce her evermore!
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
