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say it: brayk
break is a verb and noun meaning "terminate". It carries 75 recorded senses.
“The freshly baked loaf fell apart”
act in disregard of laws, rules, contracts, or promises
“offend all laws of humanity”
“violate the basic laws or human civilization”
“break a law”
“break a promise”
move away or escape suddenly
“The horses broke from the stable”
“Three inmates broke jail”
“Nobody can break out--this prison is high security”
force out or release suddenly and often violently something pent up
“break into tears”
“erupt in anger”
make submissive, obedient, or useful
“The horse was tough to break”
“I broke in the new intern”
fail to agree with; be in violation of; as of rules or patterns
“This sentence violates the rules of syntax”
make known to the public information that was previously known only to a few people or that was meant to be kept a secret
“The auction house would not disclose the price at which the van Gogh had sold”
“The actress won't reveal how old she is”
“bring out the truth”
“he broke the news to her”
“unwrap the evidence in the murder case”
“The newspaper uncovered the President's illegal dealings”
stop operating or functioning
“The engine finally went”
“The car died on the road”
“The bus we travelled in broke down on the way to town”
“The coffee maker broke”
“The engine failed on the way to town”
“her eyesight went after the accident”
interrupt a continued activity
“She had broken with the traditional patterns”
make a rupture in the ranks of the enemy or one's own by quitting or fleeing
“The ranks broke”
military
cause to give up a habit
“She finally broke herself of smoking cigarettes”
come forth or begin from a state of latency
“The first winter storm broke over New York”
happen or take place
“Things have been breaking pretty well for us in the past few months”
colloquialism
discontinue an association or relation; go different ways
“The business partners broke over a tax question”
“The couple separated after 25 years of marriage”
“My friend and I split up”
reduce to bankruptcy
“My daughter's fancy wedding is going to break me!”
“The slump in the financial markets smashed him”
change directions suddenly
do a break dance
“Kids were break-dancing at the street corner”
become punctured or penetrated
“The skin broke”
be released or become known; of news
“News of her death broke in the morning”
change suddenly from one tone quality or register to another
“Her voice broke to a whisper when she started to talk about her children”
happen
“Report the news as it develops”
“These political movements recrudesce from time to time”
crack; of the male voice in puberty
“his voice is breaking--he should no longer sing in the choir”
weaken or destroy in spirit or body
“His resistance was broken”
“a man broken by the terrible experience of near-death”
some abrupt occurrence that interrupts an ongoing activity
“the telephone is an annoying interruption”
“there was a break in the action when a player was hurt”
an unexpected piece of good luck
“he finally got his big break”
(geology) a crack in the earth's crust resulting from the displacement of one side with respect to the other
“they built it right over a geological fault”
“he studied the faulting of the earth's crust”
a personal or social separation (as between opposing factions)
“they hoped to avoid a break in relations”
a pause from doing something (as work)
“we took a 10-minute break”
“he took time out to recuperate”
a time interval during which there is a temporary cessation of something
breaking of hard tissue such as bone
“it was a nasty fracture”
“the break seems to have been caused by a fall”
an abrupt change in the tone or register of the voice (as at puberty or due to emotion)
“then there was a break in her voice”
(tennis) a score consisting of winning a game when your opponent was serving
“he was up two breaks in the second set”
tennis
an act of delaying or interrupting the continuity
“it was presented without commercial breaks”
“there was a gap in his account”
any frame in which a bowler fails to make a strike or spare
“the break in the eighth frame cost him the match”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for break come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.
geology