Why brake?

[mklotz]

Chuck Fellows' recent "Sheet Metal Brake" thread reminded me of a question that's bugged me for a long time.  I didn't want to clutter his thread so I'll ask it here.

Why is it called a "brake"?

I could sort of understand if it were called a "break" since bending sheet metal involves a motion vaguely similar to what one would use to break a flat piece, e.g., a tile or a piece of glass.  But "brake" conjures images of stopping mechanisms or thickets of gorse, not bent metal.

[Tennessee Whiskey]

Do you suppose that back in the day, before spell checker, it was misspelled and it stuck.

Whiskey

[tangler]

My dictionary gives one of the meanings as a machine for mangling flax to extract the fibres for linen (from old Dutch).  You could surmise that any machine could be called a brake in the same way that mill came to refer to any factory (originally situated by a stream).  I think it's just another example of the way English takes a generic word and then changes it slightly (or imports it from a foreign language ) to have a specific meaning - which is why English has such a large vocabulary compared to most other languages.

Just my tuppenceworth

Rod

[Jo]

One of Brake's meaning is to " fold a seam or joint". We talk about aircraft having broken wings: Not that it is unfit to fly but rather than it has joints for folding.

Jo

[Maryak]

We talk about aircraft having broken wings: Not that it is unfit to fly but rather than it has joints for folding.

Jo

IMHO broken is a derivative of break and is not related to brake.

Best Regards
Bob

[Jo]

My dictionary shows that they were alternative spellings of the same word...

If you want a good word look up "service" mine has over 1800 meanings for it... The fun I had with a French collegue teaching him some of them 

Jo

[cfellows]

Found this on ask.com:

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Brake_(sheet_metal_bending)

Apparently brake refers to the flat pan on which the sheet metal sits and gets clamped to by the clamp.

Chuck

[mklotz]

We talk about aircraft having broken wings: Not that it is unfit to fly but rather than it has joints for folding.

Jo

IMHO broken is a derivative of break and is not related to brake.

Best Regards
Bob

IMNSHO too, Jo.  The principal parts of the verb are break, broke, broken.

[tel]

I know all about broke, if that helps!

[mklotz]

Found this on ask.com:

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Brake_(sheet_metal_bending)

Apparently brake refers to the flat pan on which the sheet metal sits and gets clamped to by the clamp.

Wiktionary offer's one definition of brake as:

a baker's kneading trough

which I would imagine to be some sort of flat plate or stone.  Since the art of bending sheet metal is fairly old it's not impossible that ancient artisans adopted the baker's nomenclature to their tools.

[Jo]

The definition I provided comes from copy of Websters Third International Dictionary dating from 1961  .

Jo

[ths]

Websters? In Hampshire!

[Lew Hartswick]

And how is the term  "Cane brake" related????
   ...lew...

[tangler]

Well, "brake" for "break" could come from Noah Webster's attempt to turn English into American.  A stand of cane could be used as a wind break.

Just a thought.

Rod

[tangler]

However, the OED  says that brake is an archaic word for thicket from old German.  You guys over there are just sooooo yesterday

Rod