circuit breaker n. a rule or law that puts protective measures in place once a certain level of financial activity has been reached; (specifically) a law that provides tax refunds once a maximum of property taxes have been paid; a rule that shuts down or limits trading action when a stock market’s value or activity changes more than a certain percentage. Editorial Note: In Australia and New Zealand an additional meaning of the term is used, given by the Macquarie Dictionary as “an event, activity, etc., which acts as a distraction from previous preoccupations and tensions.” (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
How do you transform ancient Chinese script for use in the modern age? English uses a keyboard with just 26 letters, but the first Chinese typewriter looked like a small table under a huge disk with more than 4,000 characters. A new book chronicles...
Gossip goes by many names: the poop, the scoop, the lowdown, the dope, the scuttlebutt, the 411, the grapes, the gore, and hot tea. Plus, John Donne’s love poems are among the greatest in the English language, even as they’re famously...