What is break?

More definitions of "break":

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

• (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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (verb): Change directions suddenly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (verb): Ruin completely.
  Synonyms: bust

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (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): 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"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (verb): Make the opening shot that scatters the balls.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Famous quotes containing the word break:

“Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu’ o’ care?
Thou’lt break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o’ departed joys,
Departed never to return.”
—Robert Burns (1759–1796)

“One way to do it might be by making the scenery penetrate the automobile. A polished black sedan was a good subject, especially if parked at the intersection of a tree-bordered street and one of those heavyish spring skies whose bloated gray clouds and amoeba-shaped blotches of blue seem more physical than the reticent elms and effusive pavement. Now break the body of the car into separate curves and panels; then put it together in terms of reflections.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)

“It ain’t no sin if you crack a few laws now and then, just so long as you don’t break any.”
—Mae West, U.S. actor, screenwriter, and A. Edward Sutherland. Peaches O’Day (Mae West)