1The cracking or breaking of a hard object or material.

地面活动可能会使管道断裂。

1. 1.1count noun A crack or break in a hard object or material, typically a bone or a rock stratum.
   （尤指岩层的）裂缝，裂痕；骨折
   a fracture of the left leg

   左腿骨折。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • My back was broken in two places - one break and one compressed fracture.
   • Along with the fractures, bone chips, and muscle strains, I received scars on my back, arms and shoulders, my forehead, and my knees.
   • Where limestone occurs adjacent to ironstone, it shows various stages of replacement by chert and hematitic material parallel to bedding and along fractures.
   • Severe pain over a bone might indicate a fracture or an injury to a ligament.
   • If a break occurred in the skin overlying the fracture, it must be considered an open fracture, necessitating orthopedic referral.
   • He had a skull fracture, was in serious shock and had a compound leg fracture.
   • A previous spinal fracture is an important risk factor for subsequent hip fractures in both men and women.
   • Stress fractures are partial fractures, often hairline cracks in the bone, caused by repeated stress.
   • Direct injury to the spine may cause a bone fracture anywhere along your vertebral column.
   • When fractures occur, the bone is not always broken completely.
   • Quakes radiate along fault lines, which often are existing fractures in the rock but can also be created by a new line of breakage.
   • Bone scanning is sensitive but not specific for detecting stress fractures, healing fractures, infections and tumors.
   • As the magma in the intruding sill moves updip, the tensile stress on an intersecting fracture above the sill becomes greater, and the tensile strength of the sediments becomes less.
   • Conditions such as an uncorrected fracture of the shin bone, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis or Paget's disease can distort the ends of the bones and cause knock knee in adults.
   • For an older person a hip fracture is a devastating injury that greatly increases disability and mortality.
   • The latter do not include typical pegmatite minerals and appear mainly along the tectonic fractures present at this locality.
   • This situation raises numerous possibilities for mineral reactions, especially when the fractures transect different rock types.
   • All indicate that, even at the greatest depths, the rocks are fractured and the fractures contain aqueous fluids.
   • Many of the most ancient gold mines, and some of the more famous ones from modern times, were simple gold-bearing quartz - pyrite veins in faults and other fractures in rocks.

   Synonyms

   break, breakage, crack, split

   crack, split, fissure, crevice, break, rupture, breach, rift, cleft, slit, chink, gap, cranny, interstice, opening, aperture, rent

   crazing
2. 1.2 The physical appearance of a freshly broken rock or mineral, especially as regards the shape of the surface formed.
   （刚断裂的岩石或矿石的）断口，断面
   obsidian shows a conchoidal fracture

   Example sentencesExamples

   • It is brittle, breaking with a conchoidal to uneven fracture, and it has a hardness of 2.5 and a measured density of 5.82.
   • Alteration of this mineral has produced an unusual abundance of vivianite coatings on fracture surfaces in the rock.
   • It forms attractive dendrites on fracture surfaces.
   • The mineral is brittle with a conchoidal to uneven fracture.
   • Its fracture is conchoidal to uneven, its density is about 3.73, and its hardness varies from 5.5 to 6.5.

2Phonetics
The replacement of a simple vowel by a diphthong owing to the influence of a following sound, typically a consonant.

1. 2.1count noun A diphthong substituted by fracture.
   由单元音割裂成的复合元音

1Break or cause to break.

这块石头已经断裂了。

被风和冰的力量弄裂的古代岩浆。

1. 1.1with object Sustain a fracture of (a bone)
   遭受（骨的）断裂
   he fractured his skull when he was a kid

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Three of her ribs had been fractured and her wrist broken.
   • He fractured his neck, and broke an arm and collarbone.
   • Just because your ribs don't hurt when you poke them, does not mean you didn't fracture or break your ribs.
   • A 55 year-old man broke his pelvis and fractured both his legs.
   • While riding another horse, he fell and shattered his collarbone, broke his shoulder, and fractured his ribs.
   • It was also severely burned and had fractured bones and skull.
   • She has never required any surgical procedures or fractured any bones.
   • It doesn't always work: Five years ago in the Alps she landed badly on a jump, breaking her pelvis and fracturing a vertebra.
   • The mammalian liver can regenerate if a part of it is removed, the antlers of male deer regenerate each year, and fractured bones can mend by a regenerative process.
   • He fractured both legs, broke his right ankle and had deep cuts to his forehead.
   • The scaphoid is the most commonly fractured bone of the wrist.
   • During podium training, she landed short on a tumbling pass, fracturing her fibula and tearing ligaments in her ankle.
   • I got injured a lot, mostly broken wrists and collar-bones, but one Christmas I fractured my pelvis at Limerick and was out for four or five months.
   • Signs of osteoporosis include joint pain, difficulty standing or sitting up straight, or fracturing a bone without much force or impact.
   • It is quite impossible to conceive of a more serious attempt at killing someone than this because his skull was fractured and bone went into his brain.
   • The girl broke shattered her pelvis in two places, fractured her left arm and broke her thumb.
   • She had a fractured left ankle and a right wrist so badly broken that the bone went through her skin.
   • His leg was broken, his cheekbone and nose fractured and he spent eight days in hospital.
   • He testified that his father broke her nose and fractured her ribs.
   • I had fractured the bone above the knee and the unbroken part was responding to the reaction of foot movement, but there was no connection, a most eerie sensation.

   Synonyms

   broken, cracked, splintered, shattered, ruptured
2. 1.2 (with reference to a group or organization) split or fragment and become unable to function or exist.
   〈喻〉（组织机构或抽象事物的）瓦解；分裂，破裂
   no object the movement had fractured without his leadership

   这一运动在他未参与领导的情况下破裂了。

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The women's movement in Egypt is multi-faceted and fractured.
   • As a consultant, it's not unusual for me to discover a workplace fractured into territories.
   • Large organisations are constructed to fracture and dilute accountability.
   • The Guild fractured and our leaders began attacking one another, so the whole thing collapsed.
   • So, where do cultural organizations and cultural experiences fit in this increasingly fractured world?
   • So, at the moment you still have security forces that are essentially fractured into two camps.
   • With many factions and continuous fracturing, the young country struggled to gain a sense of national union.
   • By the time he had resigned from his position he'd fractured the organization in two and been accused by his own department as being ‘dangerous’.
   • For a time, the revolt chilled the atmosphere in which they had to operate and stimulated a vigorous debate within their fracturing movement about the appropriate means to effect the desired end of emancipation.
   • Already the wind farm legacy has left fractured and divided host communities, where developers have used the divide and rule strategy by creating winners and losers.
   • In so doing, the organisation can fracture families and, potentially, tie youngsters into a spiral of irresponsible and dangerous behaviour.
   • Is it any wonder that the country grows restive and fractured as common sense seeps away from law enforcement?
   • Without goals, everyone will slip into their own direction, and fracture any sense of unity in the work that is produced.
   • We're definitely moving in a positive direction, but each time we make a leap to a new level of functionality, things get more complicated and fractured and difficult for a while.
   • The cracks are reappearing; without a common sense of moral purpose, the party will fracture into its constituent, warring factions.
   • But the splits that fractured the women's movement are hairline cracks compared with the schisms within the Pankhurst family itself.
   • It's a story of passages, of a family that we have known for many years fracturing and moving on in their separate ways.
   • Generations are split up and badly fractured like never before.
   • We have our high points but then we fracture and split.
   • All were in the same community - fractured, split apart, nursing bitterness.

   Synonyms

   break apart, rupture, fissure, snap, come apart, splinter