break

verb breaks · breaking · broke · brake · broken

1. ergative, intransitive, transitive To separate into two or more pieces, to fracture or crack, by a process that cannot easily be reversed for reassembly. If the vase falls to the floor, it might break.
2. ergative, intransitive, transitive To crack or fracture (bone) under a physical strain. His ribs broke under the weight of the rocks piled on his chest.
3. ergative, intransitive, transitive To make the first shot; to scatter the balls from the initial neat arrangement. Is it your or my turn to break?
4. ergative, figuratively, intransitive, transitive To divide (something, often money) into smaller units. Can you break a hundred-dollar bill for me?
5. ergative, figuratively, intransitive, transitive To use a high-value denomination of currency, thus necessitating being given change in smaller denominations. I don't want to break my hundred dollar bill.
6. ergative, intransitive, transitive To change the orderliness or compactness of an arrangement. The soldier broke formation.
7. ergative, intransitive, transitive To disrupt the surface of and turn over the body of a substance. You have to break the soil with the ho.
8. transitive To cause (a person or animal) to lose spirit or will; to crush the spirits of. Her child’s death broke Angela.
9. intransitive, transitive To be crushed, or overwhelmed with sorrow or grief. My heart is breaking.
10. transitive To turn an animal into a beast of burden. Colonel: See, gentlemen? Any horse could be broken.
11. transitive To destroy the strength, firmness, or consistency of. to break flax
12. intransitive, transitive To become weakened in constitution or faculties; to lose health or strength. See how the dean begins to break; / Poor gentleman he droops apace.
13. transitive To destroy the official character and standing of; to cashier; to dismiss. when I see a great officer broke.
14. transitive To demote; to reduce the military rank of. Sir Reginald Wingate, High Commissioner in Egypt, was happy for the success of the work he had advocated for years. I grudged him this happiness; for McMahon, who took the actual risk of starting it, had been broken just before prosperity began.
15. transitive To end (something) as a meaningful force. break the enemy
16. transitive To win a game (against one's opponent) as receiver. He needs to break serve to win the match.
17. transitive To remove one of the two men on (a point).
18. transitive To interrupt; to destroy the continuity of; to dissolve or terminate. I’ve got to break this habit I have of biting my nails. Can you break this habit of mine?
19. transitive To end (a connection); to disconnect. The referee ordered the boxers to break the clinch.
20. transitive To ruin financially; to harm. The recession broke some small businesses.
21. transitive To end the run of (a play). In July Alexander broke the run and went on tour, as was his custom. He believed in keeping in touch with provincial audiences and how wise he was!
22. intransitive, transitive Of prices on the stock exchange: to fall suddenly. With a few exceptions, stock prices tend to follow the overall market averages. When you have a market decline, therefore, many stocks share the same overall chart pattern. Prices break and go sideways for a period of time.
23. transitive To violate a contract or end the applicability of a will. He broke the lease.
24. transitive To end the continuity or consistency of something. She broke the matching set by buying a one of a kind item.
25. intransitive, obsolete, transitive To fail in business; to go broke, to become bankrupt. He that puts all upon adventures doth oftentimes break, and come to poverty.
26. archaic, intransitive, transitive To fall out; to terminate friendship. c. 1700 Jeremy Collier, On Friendship To break upon the score of danger or expense is to be mean and narrow-spirited.
27. transitive To change a steady state abruptly. His coughing broke the silence.
28. transitive To disrupt a surface. The dolphin broke the water by jumping into the air.
29. transitive To make by forcing one's way through. It's time to break a trail through the park.
30. transitive To force one's way through. Her promotion broke America's racial barriers.
31. dated, intransitive, transitive To escape. He broke from prison.
32. intransitive, transitive To make an abrupt or sudden change; to change gait. to break into a run or gallop
33. transitive To (attempt to) disengage and flee to; to make a run for. As the last firing of the big guns begins to die down, the German light forces still fighting to the west begin to make their choices. Some break for the open sea; others run for the German-occupied coast; still others stand and die. A small group decide to strike their colors, in imitation of three
34. intransitive, transitive To burst forth; to make its way; to come into view. The Clouds are ſtill above; and, while I ſpeak, / A ſecond deluge o'er our head may break.
35. intransitive, transitive To collapse into surf, after arriving in shallow water. There are many places on the reef that break during the summer.
36. transitive To solve a code or case. That news broke the case wide open.
37. intransitive, transitive To go down, in terms of temperature, indicating that the most dangerous part of the illness has passed. Susan's fever broke at about 3 AM, and the doctor said the worst was over.
38. transitive To successfully treat or resist (a fever). The treatment broke my fever.
39. intransitive, transitive To end. The forecast says the hot weather will break by midweek.
40. intransitive, transitive To begin or end. We ran to find shelter before the storm broke.
41. intransitive, transitive To arrive. Morning has broken.
42. intransitive, transitive To counter-attack. The Baggies almost hit back instantly when Graham Dorrans broke from midfield and pulled the trigger from 15 yards but Paul Robinson did superbly to tip the Scot's drive around the post.
43. ergative, transitive To disclose or make known an item of news, a band, etc. The newsman wanted to break a big story, something that would make him famous.
44. transitive To cause, or allow the occurrence of, a line break. zero-width non-breaking space
45. intransitive, transitive To stop, or to cause to stop, functioning properly or altogether. On the hottest day of the year the refrigerator broke.
46. intransitive, transitive To violate; to fail to adhere to. When you go to Vancouver, promise me you won't break the law.
47. intransitive, slang, transitive To render (a game) unchallenging by altering its rules or exploiting loopholes or weaknesses in them in a way that gives a player an unfair advantage. Changing the rules to let white have three extra queens would break chess.
48. intransitive, transitive To prove a falsity. The detectives will break her alibi.
49. intransitive, transitive To cause (a barrier) to no longer bar; to rupture; to render a barrier ineffective. to break a seal
50. intransitive, specifically, transitive To cause the shell of (an egg) to crack, so that the inside (yolk) is accessible.
51. intransitive, specifically, transitive To open (a safe) without using the correct key, combination, or the like.
52. intransitive, transitive To destroy the arrangement of; to throw into disorder; to pierce. The cavalry were not able to break the British squares.
53. intransitive, specifically, transitive To cause (some feature of a program or piece of software) to stop functioning properly; to cause a regression. Adding 64-bit support broke backward compatibility with earlier versions.
54. intransitive, transitive To interrupt (a fall) by inserting something or by being place such that the falling object does not (immediately) hit something else beneath. He survived the jump out the window because the bushes below broke his fall.
55. intransitive, transitive To surpass or do better than (a specific number); to do better than (a record), setting a new record. He broke the men's 100-meter record.
56. intransitive, transitive To do better than a specified value. He's hoping to break 90.
57. intransitive, transitive To get past defenders, resulting in a specified run. He broke a thirty-yard run.
58. intransitive, transitive To terminate the execution of a program before normal completion.
59. intransitive, transitive To suspend the execution of a program during debugging so that the state of the program can be investigated.
60. copulative, informal To suddenly become. Things began breaking bad for him when his parents died.

Similar: burst, bust, shatter, shear, smash, split, bisect, fracture, subject, tame, go against, violate

noun breaks

1. An instance of breaking something into two or more pieces. The femur has a clean break and so should heal easily.
2. A physical space that opens up in something or between two things. The sun came out in a break in the clouds.
3. An interruption of continuity; departure from or rupture with. Work commenced at 2.30 p.m. on Saturday and continued without break until 4 a.m. on Monday morning, in the course of which three shifts of upwards of 90 men each and three steam cranes were employed.
4. A rest or pause, usually from work. Let’s take a five-minute break.
5. UK A time for students to talk or play between lessons. It was playtime - or rather ‘break’ - and I had brazenly joined in a game of football on the school parade ground.
6. A scheduled interval of days or weeks between periods of school instruction; a holiday. winter break, spring break
7. A short holiday. a weekend break on the Isle of Wight
8. A temporary split with a romantic partner. I think we need a break.
9. An interval or intermission between two parts of a performance, for example a theatre show, broadcast, or sports game. But they marginally improved after the break as Didier Drogba hit the post.
10. A significant change in circumstance, attitude, perception, or focus of attention. big break
11. A sudden fall in prices on the stock exchange. Following the invasion of France by the Germans in May of 1940, the securities markets experienced a break in prices.
12. The beginning (of the morning). daybreak
13. An act of escaping. to make a break for it; to make a break for the door
14. The separation between lines, paragraphs or pages of a written text. No matter how much text you add above the break, the text after the break will always appear at the top of a new page.
15. A keystroke or other signal that causes a program to terminate or suspend execution.
16. abbreviation, ellipsis Ellipsis of breakpoint.breakpoint
17. UK A change, particularly the end of a spell of persistent good or bad weather.
18. A game won by the receiving player(s).
19. The first shot in a game of billiards.
20. The number of points scored by one player in one visit to the table.
21. The counter-attack. Blackpool were not without their opportunities - thanks to their willingness to commit and leave men forward even when under severe pressure - and they looked very capable of scoring on the break.
22. The curve imparted to the ball's motion on the green due to slope or grass texture.
23. A place where waves break (that is, where waves pitch or spill forward creating white water). The final break in the Greenmount area is Kirra Point.
24. The start of a horse race. Cigar was distracted at the break and let his five opponents get the jump.
25. The opening of packages of cards for a collectible card game, often for further distribution to paying customers.
26. dated A large four-wheeled carriage, having a straight body and calash top, with the driver's seat in front and the footman's behind.
27. alternative Alternative form of brake (“cart or carriage without a body, for breaking in horses”)brake
28. A sharp bit or snaffle. Pampered jades […] which need nor break nor bit.
29. A short section of music, often between verses, in which some performers stop while others continue. The fiddle break was amazing; it was a pity the singer came back in on the wrong note.
30. The point in the musical scale at which a woodwind instrument is designed to overblow, that is, to move from its lower to its upper register. Crossing the break smoothly is one of the first lessons the young clarinettist needs to master.
31. The transition area between a singer's vocal registers; the passaggio. 34. Of the Registers of the Voice - All singers have observed that there are certain parts of the Vocal Scale where a break, as it is called, seldom fails to occur.
32. in plural An area along a river that features steep banks, bluffs, or gorges (e.g., Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, US).
33. obsolete, slang An error. "Maybe he will some day," says the Missus, and then her and Bessie pretended like they'd made a break and was embarrassed.
34. A crease or fold arising where the pants leg reaches the shoe. A full break or even multiple breaks is an older, more conservative style, as modern pants often end well above the shoe, so there is no break.

noun breaks

1. A section of extended repetition of the percussion break to a song, created by a hip-hop DJ as rhythmic dance music. The smooth criminal on beat breaks / Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes

verb breaks · breaking · breaked

1. slang To B-boy; to breakdance. Let the poppers pop and the breakers break / We're cool, cool cats, it's like that
2. rare To brake. Breaking heavily, now on a 1 in 39 gradient, the train makes as if to cross the Tamar at once, only to swing sharply to the right, […].