Library / English Dictionary |
BREAK OUT
Pronunciation (US): | (GB): |
I. (verb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Example:
Such boils tend to recrudesce
Synonyms:
break out; erupt; recrudesce
Classified under:
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.
Hypernyms (to "break out" is one way to...):
ail; pain; trouble (cause bodily suffering to and make sick or indisposed)
Sentence frames:
Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Sense 2
Meaning:
Example:
After 1989, peace broke out in the former East Bloc
Synonyms:
break out; erupt
Classified under:
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.
Hypernyms (to "break out" is one way to...):
begin; start (have a beginning, in a temporal, spatial, or evaluative sense)
Sentence frame:
Something ----s
Sense 3
Meaning:
Begin suddenly and sometimes violently
Example:
He broke out shouting
Classified under:
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.
Hypernyms (to "break out" is one way to...):
begin; start (have a beginning, in a temporal, spatial, or evaluative sense)
Sentence frames:
Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s VERB-ing
Sense 4
Meaning:
Take from stowage in preparation for use
Classified under:
Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging
Hypernyms (to "break out" is one way to...):
take out; unpack (remove from its packing)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s something
Sense 5
Meaning:
Example:
Nobody can break out--this prison is high security
Synonyms:
break; break away; break out
Classified under:
Verbs of walking, flying, swimming
Hypernyms (to "break out" is one way to...):
break loose; escape; get away (run away from confinement)
Verb group:
break (make a rupture in the ranks of the enemy or one's own by quitting or fleeing)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s
Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s PP
Derivation:
breakout (an escape from jail)
Context examples:
They went and announced him to the king, and gave it as their opinion that if war should break out, this would be a weighty and useful man who ought on no account to be allowed to depart.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
When did it break out?
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
You have a very bad disposition, said she, and one to this day I feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
These are two of many possible examples, but the way this would work is that you would rebel and break out of the situation quite suddenly.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
A quibble arose concerning the phrase “break out.”
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
I called to the coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break out through the ring and to aid his approach.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
But would it break out afresh?
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Yes, I've learned to check the hasty words that rise to my lips, and when I feel that they mean to break out against my will, I just go away for a minute, and give myself a little shake for being so weak and wicked, answered Mrs. March with a sigh and a smile, as she smoothed and fastened up Jo's disheveled hair.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
You may change jobs to make a radical career switch, or you might break out to start your own business to feel more in control of your destiny.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
The general hope was that the West Indian expedition since the peace might have given many of their fleet an ocean training, and that they might be tempted out into mid-Channel if the war were to break out afresh.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)