Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Break   /breɪk/   Listen
Break

verb
(past broke, obs. brake; past part. broken, obs. broke; pres. part. breaking)
1.
Terminate.  Synonym: interrupt.  "Break a lucky streak" , "Break the cycle of poverty"
2.
Become separated into pieces or fragments.  Synonyms: come apart, fall apart, separate, split up.  "The freshly baked loaf fell apart"
3.
Render inoperable or ineffective.
4.
Ruin completely.  Synonym: bust.
5.
Destroy the integrity of; usually by force; cause to separate into pieces or fragments.  "She broke the match"
6.
Act in disregard of laws, rules, contracts, or promises.  Synonyms: breach, go against, infract, offend, transgress, violate.  "Violate the basic laws or human civilization" , "Break a law" , "Break a promise"
7.
Move away or escape suddenly.  Synonyms: break away, break out.  "Three inmates broke jail" , "Nobody can break out--this prison is high security"
8.
Scatter or part.
9.
Force out or release suddenly and often violently something pent up.  Synonyms: burst, erupt.  "Erupt in anger"
10.
Prevent completion.  Synonyms: break off, discontinue, stop.  "Break off the negotiations"
11.
Enter someone's (virtual or real) property in an unauthorized manner, usually with the intent to steal or commit a violent act.  Synonym: break in.  "They broke into my car and stole my radio!" , "Who broke into my account last night?"
12.
Make submissive, obedient, or useful.  Synonym: break in.  "I broke in the new intern"
13.
Fail to agree with; be in violation of; as of rules or patterns.  Synonyms: go against, violate.
14.
Surpass in excellence.  Synonym: better.  "Break a record"
15.
Make known to the public information that was previously known only to a few people or that was meant to be kept a secret.  Synonyms: bring out, disclose, discover, divulge, expose, give away, let on, let out, reveal, unwrap.  "The actress won't reveal how old she is" , "Bring out the truth" , "He broke the news to her" , "Unwrap the evidence in the murder case"
16.
Come into being.  "Voices broke in the air"
17.
Stop operating or functioning.  Synonyms: break down, conk out, die, fail, give out, give way, go, go bad.  "The car died on the road" , "The bus we travelled in broke down on the way to town" , "The coffee maker broke" , "The engine failed on the way to town" , "Her eyesight went after the accident"
18.
Interrupt a continued activity.  Synonym: break away.
19.
Make a rupture in the ranks of the enemy or one's own by quitting or fleeing.
20.
Curl over and fall apart in surf or foam, of waves.
21.
Lessen in force or effect.  Synonyms: damp, dampen, soften, weaken.  "Break a fall"
22.
Be broken in.
23.
Come to an end.
24.
Vary or interrupt a uniformity or continuity.
25.
Cause to give up a habit.
26.
Give up.
27.
Come forth or begin from a state of latency.
28.
Happen or take place.
29.
Cause the failure or ruin of.  "This play will either make or break the playwright"
30.
Invalidate by judicial action.
31.
Discontinue an association or relation; go different ways.  Synonyms: break up, part, separate, split, split up.  "The couple separated after 25 years of marriage" , "My friend and I split up"
32.
Assign to a lower position; reduce in rank.  Synonyms: bump, demote, kick downstairs, relegate.  "He was broken down to Sergeant"
33.
Reduce to bankruptcy.  Synonyms: bankrupt, ruin, smash.  "The slump in the financial markets smashed him"
34.
Change directions suddenly.
35.
Emerge from the surface of a body of water.
36.
Break down, literally or metaphorically.  Synonyms: cave in, collapse, fall in, founder, give, give way.  "The business collapsed" , "The dam broke" , "The roof collapsed" , "The wall gave in" , "The roof finally gave under the weight of the ice"
37.
Do a break dance.  Synonyms: break-dance, break dance.
38.
Exchange for smaller units of money.
39.
Destroy the completeness of a set of related items.  Synonym: break up.
40.
Make the opening shot that scatters the balls.
41.
Separate from a clinch, in boxing.
42.
Go to pieces.  Synonyms: bust, fall apart, wear, wear out.  "The gears wore out" , "The old chair finally fell apart completely"
43.
Break a piece from a whole.  Synonyms: break off, snap off.
44.
Become punctured or penetrated.
45.
Pierce or penetrate.
46.
Be released or become known; of news.  Synonyms: get around, get out.
47.
Cease an action temporarily.  Synonyms: intermit, pause.  "Let's break for lunch"
48.
Interrupt the flow of current in.
49.
Undergo breaking.
50.
Find a flaw in.  "Break down a proof"
51.
Find the solution or key to.
52.
Change suddenly from one tone quality or register to another.
53.
Happen.  Synonyms: develop, recrudesce.  "These political movements recrudesce from time to time"
54.
Become fractured; break or crack on the surface only.  Synonyms: check, crack.
55.
Crack; of the male voice in puberty.
56.
Fall sharply.
57.
Fracture a bone of.  Synonym: fracture.
58.
Diminish or discontinue abruptly.
59.
Weaken or destroy in spirit or body.  "A man broken by the terrible experience of near-death"
noun
1.
Some abrupt occurrence that interrupts an ongoing activity.  Synonym: interruption.  "There was a break in the action when a player was hurt"
2.
An unexpected piece of good luck.  Synonyms: good luck, happy chance.
3.
(geology) a crack in the earth's crust resulting from the displacement of one side with respect to the other.  Synonyms: fault, faulting, fracture, geological fault, shift.  "He studied the faulting of the earth's crust"
4.
A personal or social separation (as between opposing factions).  Synonyms: breach, falling out, rift, rupture, severance.
5.
A pause from doing something (as work).  Synonyms: recess, respite, time out.  "He took time out to recuperate"
6.
The act of breaking something.  Synonyms: breakage, breaking.
7.
A time interval during which there is a temporary cessation of something.  Synonyms: intermission, interruption, pause, suspension.
8.
Breaking of hard tissue such as bone.  Synonym: fracture.  "The break seems to have been caused by a fall"
9.
The occurrence of breaking.
10.
An abrupt change in the tone or register of the voice (as at puberty or due to emotion).
11.
The opening shot that scatters the balls in billiards or pool.
12.
(tennis) a score consisting of winning a game when your opponent was serving.  Synonym: break of serve.
13.
An act of delaying or interrupting the continuity.  Synonyms: disruption, gap, interruption.  "There was a gap in his account"
14.
A sudden dash.
15.
Any frame in which a bowler fails to make a strike or spare.  Synonym: open frame.
16.
An escape from jail.  Synonyms: breakout, gaolbreak, jailbreak, prison-breaking, prisonbreak.



Related searches:
break apart
break away
break bread
break camp
break dance
break dancing
break down
break even
break in
break into
break loose
break of day
break of serve
break of the day
break off
break one's back
break open
break out
break seal
break short
break someone's heart
break through
break up
break water
break wind
break with
break-axe
break-dance
break-in
breakable
breakage
breaker
breaking off
breakup
coffee break
fast break
service break
spring break
tax break
tea break


WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University


Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words


Share |




"Break" Quotes from Famous Books



... was very unkind to deliberately set to work to annoy me and make me trouble, by getting the school into a frolic. Anything done to break the order of study-hours, or to withstand any rule of the school, is always an unkindness to a teacher. There is scarcely a girl in school that might help me more than you, Gypsy, ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... with Lawrence because he was troubled. His whole being was filled with a great fear. Remembering how Lawrence and Claire had acted lately, he had been thrown into a fever of jealous rage. He was utterly beyond his depth now, and he was silent because to speak would have meant to break into accusation. His imagination had pictured Claire in Lawrence's arms while he was gone; if he had actually known the truth it would have been less agonizing than ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... remember?" had been almost his very last words before departing for St. Petersburg. His devoted wife had promised this not once, but many times, while his finger was being shaken at her, and would have scorned herself had she thought it possible to break her vows. ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... out General D'Hubert, speaking through his teeth, "if your Excellency deigns to favour me with any more confidential information I don't know what I will do. It's enough to break one's sword over one's knee, and fling ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... found it somewhere in the Belt," the Major said softly. He looked at the weapon again, shaking his head. "There isn't any such gun," he said finally. "These things you say it could do ... they would require energy enough to break down the cohesive forces of molecules. There isn't any way we know of to harness that kind of energy and channel it in a ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse


More quotes...


Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com