Verb: break (broke,broken) breyk
- Destroy the integrity of; usually by force; cause to separate into pieces or fragments
"He broke the glass plate"; "She broke the match"
- Become separated into pieces or fragments
"The figurine broke";
- separate, split up, fall apart, come apart
- Render inoperable or ineffective
"You broke the alarm clock when you took it apart!";
- hose [N. Amer, informal]
- Ruin completely
"The scandal broke his career";
- bust [informal]
- Terminate or end
"break a lucky streak"; "break the cycle of poverty";
- interrupt
- Happen
"These political movements break from time to time";
- recrudesce, develop
- Happen or take place
"Things have been breaking pretty well for us in the past few months"
- Act in disregard of laws, rules, contracts, or promises
"break a law";
- transgress, offend, infract, violate, go against, breach, outrage
- Move away or escape suddenly
"The horses broke from the stable"; "Three inmates broke jail"; "Nobody can break out — this prison is high security"; "The horses broke away from the stable";
- break out, break away
- Scatter or part
"The clouds broke after the heavy downpour"
- Force out or release suddenly and often violently something pent up
"break into tears";
- burst, erupt
- Make known to the public information that was previously known only to a few people or that was meant to be kept a secret
"he broke the news to her";
- unwrap, disclose, let on, bring out, reveal, discover, expose, divulge, give away, let out, uncover, lay bare
- Come into being
"light broke over the horizon"; "Voices broke in the air"
- Stop operating or functioning
"The bus we travelled in broke down on the way to town"; "The coffee maker broke";
- fail, go bad, give way, die, give out, conk out [informal], go, break down, pack up [Brit, informal], give up the ghost [informal]
- Interrupt a continued activity
"We need to break for lunch before continuing the meeting";
- break away
- Curl over and fall apart in surf or foam, of waves
"The surf broke"
- Lessen in force or effect
"break a fall";
- dampen, damp, soften, weaken
- Come to an end
"The heat wave finally broke yesterday"
- Vary or interrupt a uniformity or continuity
"The flat landscape was broken by an occasional hill"
- Come forth or begin from a state of latency
"The first winter storm broke over New York"
- Cause the failure or ruin of
"His peccadilloes finally broke his marriage"; "This play will either make or break the playwright"
- Discontinue an association or relation; go different ways
"The business partners broke over a tax question"; "The couple broke up after 25 years of marriage";
- separate, part, split up, split, break up
- Break down, literally or metaphorically
"The dam broke";
- collapse, fall in, cave in, give, give way, founder
- Exchange for smaller units of money
"I had to break a $100 bill just to buy the candy"
- Cease an action temporarily
"let's break for lunch";
- pause, intermit
- Undergo breaking
"The simple vowels broke in many Germanic languages"
- Enter someone's (virtual or real) property in an unauthorized manner, usually with the intent to steal or commit a violent act
"Someone broke in while I was on vacation"; "They broke into my car and stole my radio!"; "who broke into my account last night?";
- break in
- Make submissive, obedient, or useful
"The horse was tough to break"; "I broke in the new intern";
- break in
- Fail to agree with; be in violation of; as of rules or patterns
"This sentence breaks the rules of syntax";
- violate, go against
- Surpass in excellence
"break a record";
- better
- (military) make a rupture in the ranks of the enemy or one's own by quitting or fleeing
"The ranks broke"
- Be broken in
"If the new teacher won't break, we'll add some stress"
- Cause to give up a habit
"She finally broke herself of smoking cigarettes"
- Give up
"break cigarette smoking"
- Invalidate by judicial action
"The Supreme Court broke the restrictive covenant"
- Assign to a lower position; reduce in rank
"They broke the officer to private";
- demote, bump, relegate, kick downstairs [informal]
- Reduce to bankruptcy
"My daughter's fancy wedding is going to break me!";
- bankrupt, ruin, smash
- Change directions suddenly
"The car broke to the left"
- Emerge from the surface of a body of water
"The whales broke"
- Do a break dance
"Kids were break-dancing at the street corner";
- break-dance, breakdance
- Destroy the completeness of a set of related items
"The book dealer would not break the set";
- break up
- (billiards) make the opening shot that scatters the balls
"He broke the rack with a powerful shot"
- Separate from a clinch, in boxing
"The referee broke the boxers"
- Detach or become detached or separated from a larger piece
"break a branch from a tree"; "Her tooth broke away";
- chip, chip off, come off, break away, break off, snap off
- Become punctured or penetrated
"The skin broke"
- Pierce or penetrate
"The blade broke her skin"
- Be released or become known; of news
"News of her death broke in the morning";
- get out, get around, get round
- Interrupt the flow of current in
"break a circuit"
- Find a flaw in
"break an alibi"; "break down a proof"
- Find the solution or key to
"break the code"
- Change suddenly from one tone quality or register to another
"Her voice broke to a whisper when she started to talk about her children"
- Become fractured; break or crack on the surface only
"The glass broke when it was heated";
- crack, check
- Crack; of the male voice in puberty
"his voice is breaking — he should no longer sing in the choir"
- Fall sharply
"stock prices broke"
- Diminish or discontinue abruptly
"The patient's fever broke last night"
- Weaken or destroy in spirit or body
"The constant stress finally broke him"
- Put an end to a state or an activity
"break off teasing your little brother";
- discontinue, stop, cease, give up, quit, lay off, break off, surcease [archaic]
- Yield information under interrogation or torture
"They managed to break him on the third day";
- crack
- Successfully decipher a code
"The team worked tirelessly to break the encrypted message";
- crack
- A pause from doing something (as work)
"we took a 10-minute break";
- respite, recess, time out
- The act of breaking something
"the break was unavoidable";
- breakage, breaking
- Some abrupt occurrence that interrupts an ongoing activity
"there was a break in the action when a player was hurt";
- interruption
- A time interval during which there is a temporary cessation of something
"He worked for hours without a break";
- pause, intermission, interruption, suspension
- The occurrence of breaking
"the break in the dam threatened the valley"
- An act of delaying or interrupting the continuity
"it was presented without commercial breaks";
- interruption, disruption, gap
- A personal or social separation (as between opposing factions)
"they hoped to avoid a break in relations";
- rupture, breach, severance, rift, falling out
- (geology) a crack in the earth's crust resulting from the displacement of one side with respect to the other
"they built it right over a geological break";
- fault, faulting, geological fault, shift, fracture
- (tennis) a score consisting of winning a game when your opponent was serving
"he was up two breaks in the second set";
- break of serve
- The opening shot that scatters the balls in billiards or pool
"His powerful break left him with several easy shots"
- An unexpected piece of good luck
"he finally got his big break";
- good luck, happy chance
- Breaking of hard tissue such as bone
"the break seems to have been caused by a fall";
- fracture
- An abrupt change in the tone or register of the voice (as at puberty or due to emotion)
"then there was a break in her voice"
- A sudden dash
"he made a break for the open door"
- Any frame in which a bowler fails to make a strike or spare
"the break in the eighth frame cost him the match";
- open frame
- An escape from jail
"the break was carefully planned"; "the prison break was carefully planned";
- breakout, jailbreak, gaolbreak [Brit, rare], prison break, prison-breaking
Sounds like: brake
Derived forms: breaks, broke, breaking, broken
See also: break down, break through, break up, chip, dismantle, erupt, fall, sever
Type of: accident, alter, alteration, annul, appear, assign, avoid, become, belie, blunt, break loose, breakup, cause, cease, chance event, change, change integrity, change of integrity, change state, cleft, come about, come down, come forth, commute, contradict, convert, crack, crevice, cut and run [informal], cut off, damage, dance, dash, deaden, decrease, delay, delegate, dent, depute, designate, destroy, detach, detachment, diminish, diphthongise [Brit], diphthongize, disperse, disrespect, disrupt, dissipate, disunite, divide, domesticate, domesticise [Brit], domesticize, emerge, end, escape, exceed, exchange, express emotion, express feelings, fall, fall out, figure out, finish, fissure, flee, flight, fly, fortuity, get, get away, go, go down, go on, hap [archaic], happen, happening, harm, have, holdup, hurt, impoverish, induce, injury, interrupt, interval, intrude, invalidate, lessen, lick [N. Amer, informal], make, modification, modify, natural event, negate, nullify, occur, occurrence, occurrent, outdo, outgo [archaic], outmatch, outperform, outstrip, part, pass, pass off, pause, penetrate, pierce, puzzle out, quash, reclaim, ruin, scatter, scissure, score, separate, separation, shift, shoot, shot, sink, solve, spread out, sprint, stimulate, stop, stroke, surmount, surpass, suss [Brit, informal], suss out [Brit, informal], switch, take flight, take place, tame, tell, terminate, time interval, trauma, trespass, trip the light fantastic [archaic], trip the light fantastic toe [archaic], turn, unriddle, vary, void, weaken, work, work out
Antonym: conform to, make
Part of: billiards, pocket billiards, pool
Encyclopedia: Break, Break, Break