BREAK OFF

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does break off mean? 

• BREAK OFF (verb)
  The verb BREAK OFF has 5 senses:

1. interrupt before its natural or planned end

2. prevent completion

3. break off (a piece from a whole)

4. break a piece from a whole

5. break a small piece off from

  Familiarity information: BREAK OFF used as a verb is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BREAK OFF (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Interrupt before its natural or planned end

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

break off; break short; cut short

Context example:

We had to cut short our vacation

Hypernyms (to "break off" is one way to...):

break; interrupt (terminate)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "break off"):

hang up (interrupt a telephone conversation)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Prevent completion

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

break; break off; discontinue; stop

Context example:

break off the negotiations

Hypernyms (to "break off" is one way to...):

end; terminate (bring to an end or halt)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "break off"):

fracture (become fractured)

bog; bog down (get stuck while doing something)

break up; cut off; disrupt; interrupt (make a break in)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Break off (a piece from a whole)

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

break away; break off; chip; chip off; come off

Context example:

Her tooth chipped

Hypernyms (to "break off" is one way to...):

divide; part; separate (come apart)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "break off"):

flake; flake off; peel; peel off (come off in flakes or thin small pieces)

exfoliate (come off in a very thin piece)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something is ----ing PP

Sense 4

Meaning:

Break a piece from a whole

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

break; break off; snap off

Context example:

break a branch from a tree

Hypernyms (to "break off" is one way to...):

detach (cause to become detached or separated; take off)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 5

Meaning:

Break a small piece off from

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

break off; chip; cut off; knap

Context example:

chip a tooth

Hypernyms (to "break off" is one way to...):

cut (separate with or as if with an instrument)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

"Sometimes." continued Lucy, after wiping her eyes, "I think whether it would not be better for us both to break off the matter entirely."

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

When asteroids collide with meteoroids or other asteroids, pieces break off and some of them eventually make their way to Earth as meteorites.

(Vitamin B3 might have been made in space, delivered to Earth by meteorites, NASA)

A gene formed when pieces of chromosomes 9 and 22 break off and trade places.

(BCR-ABL fusion gene, NCI Dictionary)

They would suffice to break off the match.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As for her father, he knew that he must be overjoyed with what had happened and that he would make the most of it to break off the engagement.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

She was obliged to break off from these very pleasant observations, which were otherwise of a sort to run into great length, by the eagerness of Harriet's wondering questions.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

At the end of such a romp, when blow and cuff and snap and snarl were fast and furious, they would break off suddenly and stand several feet apart, glaring at each other.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

This diary seems horribly like the beginning of the Arabian Nights, for everything has to break off at cockcrow—or like the ghost of Hamlet's father.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

But if he heard the tap of his wife’s stick approaching him, his talk would break off at once into the garden and its prospects, for she was still haunted by the fear that he would some day go back to the ring, and she never missed the old man for an hour without being convinced that he had hobbled off to wrest the belt from the latest upstart champion.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The researchers found cavities that undercut the base of these leading edges that can destabilize the ice front and enhance iceberg calving, the process where parts of the glacier break off and float away.

(The Hidden Meltdown of Greenland, NASA)