What is break?

More definitions of "break":

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (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"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (verb): Ruin completely.
  Synonyms: bust

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (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"

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

Famous quotes containing the word break:

“In marble halls as white as milk,
Lined with a skin as soft as silk,
Within a fountain crystal-clear,
A golden apple doth appear.
No doors there are to this stronghold,
Yet thieves break in and steal the gold.”
—Mother Goose (fl. 17th–18th century. In marble walls as white as milk (Riddle: An Egg)

“Then there is confusion
Even out of happiness, like a smoke
The words get heavy, some topple over, you break others.
And outlines disappear once again.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)

“Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would ... be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences forever, not unlike the sorcerer’s apprentice who lacked the magic formula to break the spell.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)