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BROKEN IN
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Tamed or trained to obey
Example:
this old nag is well broken in
Synonyms:
broken; broken in
Classified under:
Similar:
tame; tamed (brought from wildness into a domesticated state)
Context examples:
Martin went back to his pearl-diving article, which would have been finished sooner if it had not been broken in upon so frequently by his attempts to write poetry.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
The particular circumstances between them made a difficulty of that which to any other person would have been the easiest thing in the world; but she equally feared to say too much or too little, and sat deliberating over her paper, with the pen in her hand, till broken in on by the entrance of Edward himself.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
The stick with which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had rolled in the neighbouring gutter—the other, without doubt, had been carried away by the murderer.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
They can learn how Freedom fled from the whole broad continent, and how Nelson’s blood was shed, and Pitt’s noble heart was broken in striving that she should not pass us for ever to take refuge with our brothers across the Atlantic.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
His knees were drawn up, his head hung at a dreadful angle to his body, and the clatter of his heels against the door made the noise which had broken in upon our conversation.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The robbers, who had been not a little frightened by the opening concert, had now no doubt that some frightful hobgoblin had broken in upon them, and scampered away as fast as they could.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
I fixed in the stumps so artificially, scraping and sloping them with my knife toward the points, that I made a very tolerable comb; which was a seasonable supply, my own being so much broken in the teeth, that it was almost useless: neither did I know any artist in that country so nice and exact, as would undertake to make me another.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Marianne's feelings had then broken in, and put an end to all regularity of detail; and for some time all that could be done was to soothe her distress, lessen her alarms, and combat her resentment.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Ben, in his long, lonely wanderings about the island, had found the skeleton—it was he that had rifled it; he had found the treasure; he had dug it up (it was the haft of his pick-axe that lay broken in the excavation); he had carried it on his back, in many weary journeys, from the foot of the tall pine to a cave he had on the two-pointed hill at the north-east angle of the island, and there it had lain stored in safety since two months before the arrival of the HISPANIOLA.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Thus the three horses and their two riders rode swiftly to the lists, and it was the blare of the trumpet sounded by the squire as his lord rode into the arena which had broken in upon the prize-giving and drawn away the attention and interest of the spectators.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
