An instance of breaking something into two or more pieces.

A physical space that opens up in something or between two things.

An interruption of continuity; departure from or rupture with.

A rest or pause, usually from work, as well as a time for students to talk or play between lessons and a scheduled interval of days or weeks between periods of school instruction; a holiday.

A short holiday.

A temporary split with a romantic partner.

An interval or intermission between two parts of a performance, for example a theatre show, broadcast, or sports game.

A significant change in circumstance, attitude, perception, or focus of attention.

(finance) A sudden fall in prices on the stock exchange.

The beginning (of the morning).

An act of escaping.

(computing) The separation between lines, paragraphs or pages of a written text.

(computing) A keystroke or other signal that causes a program to terminate or suspend execution.

(programming) Short for breakpoint.

(Britain, weather) A change, particularly the end of a spell of persistent good or bad weather.

(sports and games) A noun "break" represents various definitions such as a game won by the receiving player(s) in tennis, the first shot in a game of billiards, the number of points scored by one player in one visit to the table in snooker, the counter-attack in soccer, the curve imparted to the ball's motion on the green due to slope or grass texture in golf, a place where waves break in surfing, and the start of a horse race in horse racing.

(equitation) A sharp bit or snaffle.

(music) A short section of music, often between verses, in which some performers stop while others continue.

(music) The point in the musical scale at which a woodwind instrument is designed to overblow, that is, to move from its lower to its upper register.

(music) The transition area between a singer's vocal registers; the passaggio.

(geography, chiefly in the plural) An area along a river that features steep banks, bluffs, or gorges (e.g., Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, US).

(music) A section of extended repetition of the percussion break to a song, created by a hip-hop DJ as rhythmic dance music.

(transitive, intransitive) Separate into pieces or fracture, often irreversibly, and can also refer to the cracking or fracturing of bones under physical strain.

(transitive) To divide (something, often money) into smaller units.

(transitive) To cause a person or animal to lose spirit or will, and to turn an animal into a beast of burden.

(intransitive) To be crushed, or overwhelmed with sorrow or grief.

(transitive) Interrupt, destroy the continuity of, dissolve, terminate, or end the run of a play in the theater.

(transitive) To ruin financially.

(finance, intransitive) Of prices on the stock exchange: to fall suddenly.

(transitive) To violate; to fail to adhere to.

(intransitive, of a fever) To go down, in terms of temperature, indicating that the most dangerous part of the illness has passed.

(intransitive, of a spell of settled weather) To end.

(intransitive, of a storm) To begin or end.

(intransitive, of morning, dawn, day etc.) To arrive.

(transitive, gaming slang) To render (a game) unchallenging by altering its rules or exploiting loopholes or weaknesses in them in a way that gives a player an unfair advantage.

(transitive, intransitive) To stop or cause to stop functioning properly, specifically in programming, causing a regression in a program or software.

(transitive) Cause a barrier to no longer bar, specifically to crack the shell of an egg to access the yolk, or to open a safe without the correct key or combination.

(transitive) To destroy the arrangement of; to throw into disorder; to pierce.

(intransitive, of a wave of water) To collapse into surf, after arriving in shallow water. A wave breaking.

(intransitive) To burst forth; to make its way; to come into view.

(intransitive) To interrupt or cease one's work or occupation temporarily; to go on break.

(transitive) To interrupt (a fall) by inserting something so that the falling object does not (immediately) hit something else beneath.

(transitive, ergative) To disclose or make known an item of news, a band, etc.

(intransitive, of a sound) To become audible suddenly.

(transitive) To change a steady state abruptly.

(transitive, with for) To (attempt to) disengage and flee to; to make a run for.

(copulative, informal) To suddenly become.

(intransitive, of a male voice) To become deeper at puberty.

(intransitive, of a voice) To alter in type due to emotion or strain: in men, generally to go up, in women, sometimes to go down; to crack.

(transitive) To surpass or do better than (a specific number); to do better than (a record), setting a new record.

(sports and games) Win a game in tennis as the receiver, make the first shot in billiards, snooker, or pool, and remove one of the two men on a point in backgammon.

(transitive, military, most often in the passive tense) To demote; to reduce the military rank of.

(transitive) To end (a connection); to disconnect.

(intransitive, of an emulsion) To demulsify.

(intransitive, sports) To counter-attack.

(intransitive) To become weakened in constitution or faculties; to lose health or strength.

(transitive) To destroy the strength, firmness, or consistency of.

(transitive) To destroy the official character and standing of; to cashier; to dismiss.

(intransitive) To make an abrupt or sudden change; to change gait.

(computing) To terminate the execution of a program before normal completion.

(programming) To suspend the execution of a program during debugging so that the state of the program can be investigated.

(computing) To cause, or allow the occurrence of, a line break.

(music, slang) To B-boy; to breakdance.