Shooting-brake (alternatively: shooting break) is a term describing a car body style which originated in the 1890s as a horse-drawn wagon for transporting shooting parties along with their equipment and game. The vehicles themselves were manufactured in the early 1900s in the United Kingdom by vehicle manufacturers or coachbuilders.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, a "brake" (or "break") was a heavy, open carriage with a high driver's seat, used for training or "breaking" young horses. The term shooting break gave rise to the French term break de chasse, again referring to a type of wagon used for hunting.

After the original shooting brake body style became mostly obsolete, that is, the carriage for hunters and their gear, the term itself was used with a succession of other body styles.

In England, during the 1920s and 1930s, the term shooting brake became interchangable with estate car (i.e., station wagon). In British English, the term gradually fell out of use, though in French the term break became synonymous with the station wagon body style.

Since the 1960s, a definition for term shooting brake has remained open to interpretation. It began being used to describe a sporty combination of station wagon and two-door coupé body styles –  – i.e., a more practical variant of a less practical body style. During the 1960s and early 1970s, several high-end European manufacturers began using the term shooting brake to describe a sporty, two-door, wagon-like body style. Following a hiatus from the mid 1970s until the early 2010s, the term shooting-brake entered a resurgence.

A horse-drawn shooting brake was a variation of the break (also spelled brake). Originally built as a simple but heavy frame for breaking in young horses to drive, over time it became a gentleman-driven vehicle and was popular for shooting parties. Taking the design from the rear-loading horse-drawn sporting vehicle, the body style became known as the "shooting brake".

The term shooting brake is used variously to describe any number of body styles; typically combining coupé and station wagon elements. Descriptions of the body style associated with the term include:

In the early 1900s, the Scottish Albion Motors began producing shooting brake models, described in the weekly magazine The Commercial Motor as having "seats for eight persons as well as the driver, whilst four guns and a large supply of cartridges, provisions baskets and a good 'bag' can be carried." The 1912 Hudson Model 33 was described in England as a shooting brake, on the basis that "it was also used to carry the beaters to and from the location of the shoot, and for bringing back the game shot".