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break down is a verb meaning "make ineffective". It carries 8 recorded senses.
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”
fall apart
“the building crumbled after the explosion”
“Negotiations broke down”
cause to fall or collapse
collapse due to fatigue, an illness, or a sudden attack
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for break down come from Princeton University’s WordNet. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.