Breakage is the act of breaking something, or things that have been broken. When a moving company talks about breakage, they mean dishes, glasses, or other fragile items that got damaged during the move. A store might have a “you break it, you buy it” policy to cover breakage costs when customers accidentally knock things over.

The word often appears in situations where breaking things is expected or calculated. Museums budget for breakage because even careful handlers occasionally drop objects. Shipping companies include breakage rates in their planning because some percentage of glass or ceramic items will break in transit, no matter how carefully they're packed.

In stores and restaurants, breakage means the steady trickle of broken plates, glasses, or merchandise that happens through normal business operations. A café owner knows that servers will occasionally drop cups, so they factor this breakage into their budget. Scientists running experiments with glassware also expect some breakage and keep extra beakers and test tubes on hand.

The word sometimes appears in the phrase “breakage and shrinkage,” where shrinkage means items that disappear through theft or loss. Together, these words describe all the ways a business loses inventory beyond just selling it to customers.