BREEZE. (I) A current of air less than a "wind," which in turn is less than a "gale." (See BEAUFORT SCALE.) The term is qualified in many different ways, e.g., glacial-breeze—a cold breeze blowing down the course of a glacier; lake-breeze—light wind blowing on to the coast of a lake in sunny weather during the mid dle of the day; mountain breeze—a mass of air flowing down into the valley during the night; valley breeze—a day breeze blowing up the valleys. The unqualified term is usually applied to the light wind blowing landwards by day, sea-breeze, and the counter wind blowing offshore at night, land-breeze.
(a) In industry breeze is a name given to small cinders and fine coal used in burning bricks. The term is also applied to small clinker and clinker dust. Used as a matrix with Portland cement, breeze is now widely employed to make lintels for building, fixing-bricks, and blocks for building cheap partitions. A breeze for such a purpose should be carefully washed and rendered free from sulphur to prevent disintegration after moulding. The coke breeze fixing-brick is a very useful product, as it saves much labour in fixing door-frames, skirtings, picture-mouldings, etc. The breeze block will hold nails, and its use therefore makes it unnecessary to plug walls where joinery has to be fixed.