AskDefine | Define broken

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Dictionary Definition

broken adj
1 physically and forcibly separated into pieces or cracked or split; or legally or emotionally destroyed; "a broken mirror"; "a broken tooth"; "a broken leg"; "his neck is broken"; "children from broken homes"; "a broken marriage"; "a broken heart" [ant: unbroken]
2 not continuous in space, time, or sequence or varying abruptly; "broken lines of defense"; "a broken cable transmission"; "broken sleep"; "tear off the stub above the broken line"; "a broken note"; "broken sobs" [ant: unbroken]
3 subdued or brought low in condition or status; "brought low"; "a broken man"; "his broken spirit" [syn: crushed, humbled, humiliated, low]
4 (especially of promises or contracts) having been violated or disregarded; "broken (or unkept) promises"; "broken contracts" [syn: unkept] [ant: unbroken]
5 tamed or trained to obey; "a horse broken to the saddle"; "this old nag is well broken in" [syn: broken in]
6 topographically very uneven; "broken terrain"; "rugged ground" [syn: rugged]
7 imperfectly spoken or written; "broken English"
8 thrown into a state of disarray or confusion; "troops fleeing in broken ranks"; "a confused mass of papers on the desk"; "the small disordered room"; "with everything so upset" [syn: confused, disordered, upset]
9 weakened and infirm; "broken health resulting from alcoholism"
10 destroyed financially; "the broken fortunes of the family" [syn: wiped out(p), impoverished]
11 out of working order (`busted' is an informal substitute for `broken'); "a broken washing machine"; "the coke machine is broken"; "the coke machine is busted" [syn: busted]
12 discontinuous; "broken clouds"; "broken sunshine"
13 lacking a part or parts; "a broken set of encyclopedia"break

Noun

1 some abrupt occurrence that interrupts; "the telephone is an annoying interruption"; "there was a break in the action when a player was hurt" [syn: interruption]
2 an unexpected piece of good luck; "he finally got his big break" [syn: good luck, happy chance]
3 (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" [syn: fault, geological fault, shift, fracture]
4 a personal or social separation (as between opposing factions); "they hoped to avoid a break in relations" [syn: rupture, breach, severance, rift, falling out]
5 a pause from doing something (as work); "we took a 10-minute break"; "he took time out to recuperate" [syn: respite, recess, time out]
6 the act of breaking something; "the breakage was unavoidable" [syn: breakage, breaking]
7 a time interval during which there is a temporary cessation of something [syn: pause, intermission, interruption, suspension]
8 breaking of hard tissue such as bone; "it was a nasty fracture"; "the break seems to have been caused by a fall" [syn: fracture]
9 the occurrence of breaking; "the break in the dam threatened the valley"
10 the opening shot that scatters the balls in billiards or pool
11 (tennis) a score consisting of winning a game when your opponent was serving; "he was up two breaks in the second set" [syn: break of serve]
12 an act of delaying or interrupting the continuity; "it was presented without commercial breaks" [syn: interruption, disruption, gap]
13 a sudden dash; "he made a break for the open door"
14 any frame in which a bowler fails to make a strike or spare; "the break in the eighth frame cost him the match" [syn: open frame]
15 an escape from jail; "the breakout was carefully planned" [syn: breakout, jailbreak, gaolbreak, prisonbreak, prison-breaking]

Verb

1 terminate; "She interrupted her pregnancy"; "break a lucky streak"; "break the cycle of poverty" [syn: interrupt]
2 become separated into pieces or fragments; "The figurine broke"; "The freshly baked loaf fell apart" [syn: separate, split up, fall apart, come apart]
3 destroy the integrity of; usually by force; cause to separate into pieces or fragments; "He broke the glass plate"; "She broke the match"
4 render inoperable or ineffective; "You broke the alarm clock when you took it apart!"
5 ruin completely; "He busted my radio!" [syn: bust] [ant: repair]
6 act in disregard of laws and rules; "offend all laws of humanity"; "violate the basic laws or human civilization"; "break a law" [syn: transgress, offend, infract, violate, go against, breach]
7 move away or escape suddenly; "The horses broke from the stable"; "Three inmates broke jail"; "Nobody can break out--this prison is high security" [syn: break out, break away]
8 scatter or part; "The clouds broke after the heavy downpour"
9 force out or release suddenly and often violently something pent up; "break into tears"; "erupt in anger" [syn: burst, erupt]
10 prevent completion; "stop the project"; "break off the negociations" [syn: break off, discontinue, stop]
11 enter someone's property in an unauthorized manner, usually with the intent to steal or commit a violent act; "Someone broke in while I was on vacation"; "They broke into my car and stole my radio!" [syn: break in]
12 make submissive, obedient, or useful; "The horse was tough to break"; "I broke in the new intern" [syn: break in]
13 fail to agree with; be in violation of; as of rules or patterns; "This sentence violates the rules of syntax" [syn: violate, go against] [ant: conform to]
14 surpass in excellence; "She bettered her own record"; "break a record" [syn: better]
15 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" [syn: disclose, let on, bring out, reveal, discover, expose, divulge, impart, give away, let out]
16 come into being; "light broke over the horizon"; "Voices broke in the air"
17 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" [syn: fail, go bad, give way, die, give out, conk out, go, break down]
18 interrupt a continued activity; "She had broken with the traditional patterns" [syn: break away]
19 make a rupture in the ranks of the enemy or one's own by quitting or fleeing; "The ranks broke"
20 curl over and fall apart in surf or foam, of waves; "The surf broke"
21 lessen in force or effect; "soften a shock"; "break a fall" [syn: dampen, damp, soften, weaken]
22 be broken in; "If the new teacher won't break, we'll add some stress"
23 come to an end; "The heat wave finally broke yesterday"
24 vary or interrupt a uniformity or continuity; "The flat plain was broken by tall mesas"
25 cause to give up a habit; "She finally broke herself of smoking cigarettes"
26 give up; "break cigarette smoking"
27 come forth or begin from a state of latency; "The first winter storm broke over New York"
28 happen or take place; "Things have been breaking pretty well for us in the past few months"
29 cause the failure or ruin of; "His peccadilloes finally broke his marriage"; "This play will either make or break the playwright" [ant: make]
30 invalidate by judicial action; "The will was broken"
31 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" [syn: separate, part, split up, split, break up]
32 assign to a lower position; reduce in rank; "She was demoted because she always speaks up"; "He was broken down to Sargeant" [syn: demote, bump, relegate, kick downstairs] [ant: promote]
33 reduce to bankruptcy; "My daughter's fancy wedding is going to break me!"; "The slump in the financial markets smashed him" [syn: bankrupt, ruin, smash]
34 change directions suddenly
35 emerge from the surface of a body of water; "The whales broke"
36 break down, literally or metaphorically; "The wall collapsed"; "The business collapsed"; "The dam broke"; "The roof collapsed"; "The wall gave in"; "The roof finally gave under the weight of the ice" [syn: collapse, fall in, cave in, give, give way, founder]
37 do a break dance; "Kids were break-dancing at the street corner" [syn: break dance, break-dance]
38 exchange for smaller units of money; "I had to break a $100 bill just to buy the candy"
39 destroy the completeness of a set of related items; "The book dealer would not break the set" [syn: break up]
40 make the opening shot that scatters the balls
41 separate from a clinch, in boxing; "The referee broke the boxers"
42 go to pieces; "The lawn mower finally broke"; "The gears wore out"; "The old chair finally fell apart completely" [syn: wear, wear out, bust, fall apart]
43 break a piece from a whole; "break a branch from a tree" [syn: break off, snap off]
44 become punctured or penetrated; "The skin broke"
45 pierce or penetrate; "The blade broke her skin"
46 be released or become known; of news; "News of her death broke in the morning" [syn: get out, get around]
47 cease an action temporarily; "We pause for station identification"; "let's break for lunch" [syn: pause, intermit]
48 interrupt the flow of current in; "break a circuit"
49 undergo breaking; "The simple vowels broke in many Germanic languages"
50 find a flaw in; "break an alibi"; "break down a proof"
51 find the solution or key to; "break the code"
52 change suddenly from one tone quality or register to another; "Her voice broke to a whisper when she started to talk about her children"
53 happen; "Report the news as it develops"; "These political movements recrudesce from time to time" [syn: recrudesce, develop]
54 become fractured; break or crack on the surface only; "The glass cracked when it was heated" [syn: crack, check]
55 of the male voice in puberty; "his voice is breaking--he should no longer sing in the choir"
56 fall sharply; "stock prices broke"
57 fracture a bone of; "I broke my foot while playing hockey" [syn: fracture]
58 diminish or discontinue abruptly; "The patient's fever broke last night"
59 weaken or destroy in spirit or body; "His resistance was broken"; "a man broken by the terrible experience of near-death" [also: broken, broke]broken See break

User Contributed Dictionary

see Broken

English

Pronunciation

Adjective

  1. Bent to the point of coming apart, but not necessarily in separate pieces.
    My arm is broken
  2. Not working properly.
    I think my shaver is broken.
  3. Completely defeated and dispirited.
    The bankruptcy and divorce, together with the death of his son, left him completely broken.
  4. software informal Badly designed or implemented.
    This is the most broken application I've seen in a long time.
  5. A single tactic or option which is powerful enough to be considered overpowered.
  6. Of the sky, five eighths to seven eighths obscured by clouds.
  7. Of clouds, covering five eighths to seven eighths of the sky.

Translations

bent to the point of coming apart
not working properly
  • Czech: rozbitý
  • Finnish: rikkinäinen, rikki
  • German: gebrochen, kaputt
  • Greek: χαλασμένος
  • Irish: briste
  • Slovene: pokvarjen , pokvarjena , pokvarjeno
completely defeated and dispirited
of software: badly designed or implemented
  • Finnish: surkea
five eighths to seven eighths obscured by clouds
  • Finnish: puolipilvinen

Derived terms

Verb

broken
  1. past participle of break

Extensive Definition

Broken may refer to:
In music:
In other contexts:
broken in Spanish: Broken

Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words

aggravated, aloof, ausgespielt, bankrupt, beaten, blasted, blighted, broke, broken off, broken-down, brought low, bumpy, burned, burst, busted, capricious, careening, catchy, chastened, checked, chipped, chopped-off, choppy, coarse, coarse-grained, conditioned, conquered, corrugated, cracked, crazed, cross-grained, crushed, cut, damaged, debilitated, decousu, defeated, defied, dejected, demoralized, desolated, destitute, destroyed, desultory, detached, deteriorated, devastated, deviative, disciplined, disconnected, discontinued, discontinuous, discouraged, discrete, disintegrated, disjointed, disjunctive, disobeyed, dispirited, disregarded, disturbed, docile, domesticated, done for, done in, dovelike, down-and-out, eccentric, embittered, enfeebled, episodic, erratic, exacerbated, failed, fallen, felled, finished, fitful, flattened, flickering, fluctuating, fractured, fragmentary, fragmented, gapped, gentle, gone to pot, grainy, granulated, guttering, halting, harmed, haywire, herky-jerky, heteroclite, homespun, horripilant, housebroke, housebroken, humble, humbled, humiliated, hurt, ignored, immethodical, impaired, imperfect, in bits, in disrepair, in pieces, in receivership, in ruins, in shards, incoherent, inconsistent, inconstant, inequal, infringed, injured, inoperative, insolvent, intermittent, intermitting, interrupted, irregular, irremediable, irritated, jagged, jerky, jolty, kaput, lacerated, lamblike, licked, linsey-woolsey, lurching, made to grovel, mangled, mastered, meek, mild, mutilated, nonadherent, nonadhesive, noncoherent, noncohesive, noncontinuous, nonlinear, nonsequential, nonserial, nonuniform, obedient, on the blink, on the fritz, on the rocks, open, out of commission, out of condition, out of gear, out of joint, out of kelter, out of kilter, out of order, out of repair, out of tune, out of whack, overthrown, pacific, parenthetic, patchy, peaceable, pimply, pitted, pocky, potholed, pulverized, put down, quelled, quiet, rambling, rank, ravaged, reduced, rent, ripply, rough, rough-cast, rough-grained, rough-hewn, ruffled, ruined, ruinous, ruptured, rutted, rutty, scalded, scorched, scrappy, shagged, shaggy, shattered, shivered, slashed, slit, smashed, snatchy, spasmatic, spasmic, spasmodic, spastic, splintered, split, spoiled, sporadic, spotty, sprung, staggering, subdued, subjugated, suppressed, suspended, tame, tamed, tenuous, textured, the worse for, torn, trained, transgressed, unadhesive, uncertain, uncoherent, uncohesive, unconnected, undone, unequal, uneven, unjoined, unkempt, unlevel, unmethodical, unmetrical, unpolished, unrefined, unregular, unrhythmical, unsettled, unsmooth, unsteady, unsuccessive, unsystematic, untenacious, ununiform, vanquished, variable, veering, violated, wandering, wasted, wavering, weakened, wimpled, wobbling, wobbly, worse, worse off, worsened, wrecked
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