broken

English Online Dictionary. What means broken‎? What does broken mean?

English

Etymology

From Middle English broken, from Old English brocen, ġebrocen, from Proto-Germanic *brukanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *brekaną (“to break”). Cognate with Dutch gebroken (“broken”), German Low German broken (“broken”), German gebrochen (“broken”).

Morphologically broke +‎ -n.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbɹoʊ.kɪn/, /ˈbɹoʊ.kən/
• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: brōk'ən, IPA^(key): /ˈbɹəʊ.kən/
• Rhymes: -əʊkən

Verb

broken

1. past participle of break

Adjective

broken (comparative more broken, superlative most broken)

1. Fragmented; in separate pieces.
   1. (of a bone or body part) Fractured; having the bone in pieces.

   2. (of skin) Split or ruptured.

   3. (of a line) Dashed; made up of short lines with small gaps between each one and the next.
   4. (of sleep) Interrupted; not continuous.
   5. (meteorology, of the sky) Five-eighths to seven-eighths obscured by clouds; incompletely covered by clouds.

   6. (of a melody) Having periods of silence scattered throughout; not regularly continuous.
2. (of a promise, etc) Breached; violated; not kept.

3. Non-functional; not functioning properly.
   1. (of an electronic connection) Disconnected, no longer open or carrying traffic.
   2. (software, informal) Badly designed or implemented.

   4. (of language) Grammatically non-standard, especially as a result of being produced by a non-native speaker.
   5. (colloquial, US, of a situation) Not having gone in the way intended; saddening.

4. (of a person) Completely defeated and dispirited; shattered; destroyed.
5. Having no money; bankrupt, broke.

   (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

6. (of land) Uneven.
7. (sports, video games, of a tactic or option) Overpowered; overly powerful; giving a player too much power.

Synonyms

• (fragmented—bone, objects et al): burst, split; see also Thesaurus:broken
• (fragmented—line, sleep et al): intermittent, spasmodic; see also Thesaurus:discontinuous
• (not kept): violated
• (non-functional): borked, malfunctioning; see also Thesaurus:out of order
• (completely defeated): rekt
• (having no money): destitute, skint; see also Thesaurus:impoverished
• (uneven land):
• (overpowered): OP, unbalanced

Hyponyms

• heartbroken
• housebroken
• jailbroken

Derived terms

Collocations

Translations

Further reading

• “broken”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• Borken, bonker, borken