What is break?

More definitions of "break":

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (verb): Ruin completely.
  Synonyms: bust

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (verb): Change directions suddenly.

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

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

• (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"

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (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

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

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

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

Famous quotes containing the word break:

“The opening of large tracts by the ice-cutters commonly causes a pond to break up earlier; for the water, agitated by the wind, even in cold weather, wears away the surrounding ice.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

“But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

“The theater, which is in no thing, but makes use of everything—gestures, sounds, words, screams, light, darkness—rediscovers itself at precisely the point where the mind requires a language to express its manifestations.... To break through language in order to touch life is to create or recreate the theatre.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)