What is break?

More definitions of "break":

• (verb): Become separated into pieces or fragments.
  Synonyms: separate, split up, fall apart, come apart

• (verb): Render inoperable or ineffective.
  Example: "You broke the alarm clock when you took it apart!"

• (verb): Reduce to bankruptcy.
  Example: "My daughter's fancy wedding is going to break me!"
  Synonyms: bankrupt, ruin, smash

• (noun): The act of breaking something.
  Synonyms: breakage, breaking

• (noun): A personal or social separation (as between opposing factions).
  Example: "They hoped to avoid a break in relations"
  Synonyms: rupture, breach, severance, rift, falling out

• (verb): Come forth or begin from a state of latency.
  Example: "The first winter storm broke over New York"

• (verb): Of the male voice in puberty.
  Example: "His voice is breaking--he should no longer sing in the choir"

• (verb): Invalidate by judicial action.
  Example: "The will was broken"

• (noun): (tennis) a score consisting of winning a game when your opponent was serving.
  Synonyms: break of serve

• (verb): Act in disregard of laws and rules.
  Example: "Break a law"
  Synonyms: transgress, offend, infract, violate, go against, breach

• (verb): Ruin completely.
  Synonyms: bust

• (verb): 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: disclose, let on, bring out, reveal, discover, expose, divulge, impart, give away, let out

• (verb): Prevent completion.
  Example: "Break off the negociations"
  Synonyms: break off, discontinue, stop

• (verb): Lessen in force or effect.
  Example: "Break a fall"
  Synonyms: dampen, damp, soften, weaken

• (verb): Come to an end.
  Example: "The heat wave finally broke yesterday"

• (verb): Break a piece from a whole.
  Example: "Break a branch from a tree"
  Synonyms: break off, snap off

• (noun): Any frame in which a bowler fails to make a strike or spare.
  Example: "The break in the eighth frame cost him the match"
  Synonyms: open frame

• (verb): Stop operating or functioning.
  Synonyms: fail, go bad, give way, die, give out, conk out, go, break down

• (verb): Happen or take place.
  Example: "Things have been breaking pretty well for us in the past few months"

• (verb): Diminish or discontinue abruptly.
  Example: "The patient's fever broke last night"

• (verb): Fail to agree with; be in violation of; as of rules or patterns.
  Synonyms: violate, go against

• (verb): Find the solution or key to.
  Example: "Break the code"

• (verb): Discontinue an association or relation; go different ways.
  Synonyms: separate, part, split up, split, break up

• (verb): Surpass in excellence.
  Example: "Break a record"
  Synonyms: better

• (verb): Force out or release suddenly and often violently something pent up.
  Example: "Break into tears"
  Synonyms: burst, erupt

• (verb): Be broken in.
  Example: "If the new teacher won't break, we'll add some stress"

• (verb): Fall sharply.
  Example: "Stock prices broke"

• (verb): Emerge from the surface of a body of water.
  Example: "The whales broke"

• (verb): Find a flaw in.
  Example: "Break an alibi"; "break down a proof"

• (verb): Break down, literally or metaphorically.
  Synonyms: collapse, fall in, cave in, give, give way, founder

• (verb): Happen.
  Synonyms: recrudesce, develop

• (verb): Change directions suddenly.

• (noun): Breaking of hard tissue such as bone.
  Example: "The break seems to have been caused by a fall"
  Synonyms: fracture

• (noun): An unexpected piece of good luck.
  Example: "He finally got his big break"
  Synonyms: good luck, happy chance

• (verb): Separate from a clinch, in boxing.
  Example: "The referee broke the boxers"

• (verb): Vary or interrupt a uniformity or continuity.
  Example: "The flat plain was broken by tall mesas"

• (verb): Enter someone's property in an unauthorized manner, usually with the intent to steal or commit a violent act.
  Synonyms: break in

• (verb): Come into being.
  Example: "Light broke over the horizon"; "Voices broke in the air"

• (verb): Change suddenly from one tone quality or register to another.
  Example: "Her voice broke to a whisper when she started to talk about her children"

• (noun): A sudden dash.
  Example: "He made a break for the open door"

• (noun): (geology) a crack in the earth's crust resulting from the displacement of one side with respect to the other.
  Synonyms: fault, geological fault, shift, fracture

• (verb): Scatter or part.
  Example: "The clouds broke after the heavy downpour"

• (noun): Some abrupt occurrence that interrupts.
  Example: "There was a break in the action when a player was hurt"
  Synonyms: interruption

• (verb): Do a break dance.
  Example: "Kids were break-dancing at the street corner"
  Synonyms: break dance, break-dance

• (verb): Destroy the integrity of; usually by force; cause to separate into pieces or fragments.
  Example: "He broke the glass plate"; "She broke the match"

• (verb): Destroy the completeness of a set of related items.
  Example: "The book dealer would not break the set"
  Synonyms: break up

• (verb): Go to pieces.
  Synonyms: wear, wear out, bust, fall apart

• (verb): Weaken or destroy in spirit or body.
  Example: "His resistance was broken"; "a man broken by the terrible experience of near-death"

• (noun): An escape from jail.
  Synonyms: breakout, jailbreak, gaolbreak, prisonbreak, prison-breaking

• (verb): Assign to a lower position; reduce in rank.
  Synonyms: demote, bump, relegate, kick downstairs

• (verb): Make submissive, obedient, or useful.
  Example: "The horse was tough to break"
  Synonyms: break in

• (verb): Make a rupture in the ranks of the enemy or one's own by quitting or fleeing.
  Example: "The ranks broke"

• (verb): Fracture a bone of.
  Synonyms: fracture

• (verb): Undergo breaking.
  Example: "The simple vowels broke in many Germanic languages"

• (verb): Cause to give up a habit.
  Example: "She finally broke herself of smoking cigarettes"

• (verb): Become punctured or penetrated.
  Example: "The skin broke"

• (verb): Cause the failure or ruin of.
  Example: "His peccadilloes finally broke his marriage"; "This play will either make or break the playwright"

• (noun): The opening shot that scatters the balls in billiards or pool.

• (verb): Pierce or penetrate.
  Example: "The blade broke her skin"

• (noun): A pause from doing something (as work).
  Example: "We took a 10-minute break"
  Synonyms: respite, recess, time out

• (noun): The occurrence of breaking.
  Example: "The break in the dam threatened the valley"

• (verb): Interrupt the flow of current in.
  Example: "Break a circuit"

• (verb): Exchange for smaller units of money.
  Example: "I had to break a $100 bill just to buy the candy"

• (verb): Become fractured; break or crack on the surface only.
  Synonyms: crack, check

• (verb): Terminate.
  Example: "Break a lucky streak"; "break the cycle of poverty"
  Synonyms: interrupt

• (verb): Be released or become known; of news.
  Synonyms: get out, get around

• (verb): Give up.
  Example: "Break cigarette smoking"

• (verb): Curl over and fall apart in surf or foam, of waves.
  Example: "The surf broke"

• (verb): Cease an action temporarily.
  Example: "Let's break for lunch"
  Synonyms: pause, intermit

• (noun): A time interval during which there is a temporary cessation of something.
  Synonyms: pause, intermission, interruption, suspension

• (verb): Move away or escape suddenly.
  Example: "Nobody can break out--this prison is high security"
  Synonyms: break out, break away

• (verb): Interrupt a continued activity.
  Synonyms: break away

• (noun): An act of delaying or interrupting the continuity.
  Synonyms: interruption, disruption, gap

Famous quotes containing the word break:

“Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear
I never more will break an oath with thee.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
—Bible: New Testament Jesus, in Matthew, 6:19-21.

“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.”
—Ernst Fischer (1899–1972)