break up

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Alternative forms[edit]


break up (third-person singular simple present breaks up, present participle breaking up, simple past broke up, past participle broken up)

  1. (intransitive) To break or separate into pieces; to disintegrate or come apart.
    It broke up when it hit the ground.
  2. (intransitive, idiomatic) To end a relationship.
    She broke up with her boyfriend last week.
  3. (intransitive, idiomatic) To dissolve; to part.
    The meeting finally broke up after a three-hour discussion.
    • 1762, Charles Johnstone, The Reverie; or, A Flight to the Paradise of Fools[1], volume 2, Dublin: Printed by Dillon Chamberlaine, OCLC 519072825, page 202:
    • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 4
      So the meeting broke up, and the torchlight grew dimmer, and died away as it had come in a red flicker on the roof, and the footsteps sounded fainter as they went up the passage, until the vault was left to the dead men and me.
  4. (intransitive, idiomatic) Of a school, to close for the holidays at the end of term.
  5. (intransitive, idiomatic) Of a telephone conversation, to cease to be understandable because of a bad connection.
    You're breaking up. Can you repeat that?
  6. (transitive) To break or separate into pieces.
    Break up the cheese and put it in the salad.
  7. (transitive, idiomatic) To stop a fight; to separate people who are fighting.
    The police came in to break up the disturbance.
  8. (intransitive, idiomatic, figuratively) Become disorganised


See also[edit]