colloq.
1. A word hard to pronounce; a word of many syllables.
1839. Lever, H. Lorrequer, xix. I’d rather hear the Cruiskeen Lawn … than a score of your high Dutch jawbreakers.
1886. D. C. Murray, 1st Person Sing., xviii. 136. It’s a jawbreaker at first for an Englishman.
1887. Saintsbury, Hist. Elizab. Lit., i. 14. You will find no ‘jawbreakers’ in Sackville.
2. A machine with powerful jaws for crushing ore, etc.
1877. Raymond, Statist. Mines & Mining, 421. I speak of the rolls as more applicable for completing the crushing of the ore as it comes in small pieces from the jaw-breaker.
So Jaw-breaking a. colloq., hard to pronounce; hence Jaw-breakingly adv.
1824. Blackw. Mag., XVI. 191. Entitled by a name most jaw-breakingly perplexing.
1842. Thackeray, Miss Tickletoby’s Lect., i. Wks. 1886, XXIV. 13. He conquered a great number of princes with jaw-breaking names.
1883. Gd. Words, Sept., 592/2. A little plant that has a jaw-breaking name.
