Break one's nose perhaps (8)
I believe the answer is:
breather
'nose perhaps' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'break one's' is the wordplay.
'break' becomes 'breath' (breath is a kind of break).
'one's' becomes 'er' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'breath'+'er'='BREATHER'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for breather that I've seen before include "A rest from work - rather be thus" , "One's probably not dying" , "state" , "Short pause for rest" , "lung, possibly?" .)