break into

1. 1.

   express or utter spontaneously

   “break into a yodel”

   “break into a song”

   “break into tears”

   Broaderutter
2. 2.

   change pace

   “The dancers broke into a cha-cha”

   “The horse broke into a gallop”

   Broaderchange

Questions about break into

What does break into mean?

break into means "express or utter spontaneously". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is break into a common word?

break into is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.