What is break?

More definitions of "break":

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

• (verb): Change directions suddenly.

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

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

• (verb): Ruin completely.
  Synonyms: bust

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Famous quotes containing the word break:

“How the mother is to be pitied who hath handsome daughters! Locks, bolts, bars, and lectures of morality are nothing to them: they break through them all. They have as much pleasure in cheating a father and mother, as in cheating at cards.”
—John Gay (1685–1732)

“How prone we are to come to the consideration of every question with heads and hearts pre-occupied! How prone to shrink from any opinion, however reasonable, if it be opposed to any, however unreasonable, of our own! How disposed are we to judge, in anger, those who call upon us to think, and encourage us to enquire! To question our prejudices seems nothing less than sacrilege; to break the chains of our ignorance, nothing short of impiety!”
—Frances Wright (1795–1852)

“We may not all break the Ten Commandments, but we are certainly all capable of it. Within us lurks the breaker of all laws, ready to spring out at the first real opportunity.”
—Isadora Duncan (1878–1927)