Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also break for, break it) of people, to rush off, to leave suddenly; to escape from prison; thus breaker n., one who escapes from prison.

1740		Trial of Charles Drew 19: The Captain behaved very indecently and told the Colonel he was a Smugler, and had broke 13 Gaols already, and swore he would break another and would be next Week in France.
1848		G.F. Ruxton Life in the Far West (1849) 60: ‘Mary,’ he said, ‘I’m about to break. They’re hunting me like a fall buck, and I’m bound to quit. Don’t think any more about me, for I shall never come back.’.
1866		G.W. Harris ‘Sut Lovingood’s Big Dinner Story’ Nashville Union and Amer. XXXIII Aug. in Inge (1967) 169: Then she broke for home.
1873		Bloomfield Times (PA) 18 Mar. 2/4: As soon as she entered the door, he broke. The dogs all went after him.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 27: To break it thieves to run.
1923		J. Fishman Crucibles of Crime 226: He doesn’t want to be thought rough / By ‘gay cat,’ ‘stiff’ or ‘faker;’ / His gun it seems is just a bluff, / Hence Bender is a ‘breaker’.
1927		‘Max Brand’ Pleasant Jim 299: What I did then was to break gaol.
1930		R. Whitfield Green Ice (1988) 47: I told her to break for the dirty burg.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 51: Had a guy break from me once. They ate my ass off. Let’s go, boy.
1969		D. Pendleton Executioner (1973) 173: They’re buzzed by the fuzz. No chance, no chance. I’m breaking.
1987		Ice-T ‘Six in the Morning’ 🎵 Out the back door like some damn track stars / Broke down an alley jumped into a car.
1996		P. Beatty White Boy Shuffle 99: Break north befo’ I call mother.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 101: Farewells are often the equivalent of I must leave now and use various slang substitutes for leave. For example [...] gotta plus bogart, bolt, boogie, book, break [...] all of which mean ‘leave, depart’.

2. (also break down, break in) of things, events, to turn out, to transpire, to develop; often qualified by defining adj.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 16–19: I did n’t expect to break in, but when the night come there was nothin’ else in sight so I hot-foots up to the dance.
1908		H. Green Maison De Shine 217: Well, the way things are breakin’, Bill [...] we better grab what we can.
1917		R. Lardner ‘Three Kings and a Pair’ in Gullible’s Travels 53: ‘It’s tough luck,’ I says, ‘but you can’t expect things to break right all the w’ile.’.
1923		D. Hammett ‘House Dick’ in Nightmare Town (2001) 50: I’d just as leave have you standing by in case things break wrong.
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar 137: Things were breaking good, money was rolling in.
1933		Hecht & Fowler Great Magoo 148: Well, how are things breakin’?
1937		J. Curtis You’re in the Racket, Too 95: Things were beginning to break better now.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 265: Things were breaking all around, and not only precedents.
1952		I, Mobster 84: I ought to have felt good about the way things were breaking.
1963		H.S. Thompson letter 20 Aug. in Proud Highway (1997) 388: As for plans, there are two possibilities and they both broke today.
1974		G.F. Newman You Flash Bastard 275: ‘What about my involvement should an enquiry break?’ ‘An enquiry will break, Terry; sure it will.’.
1987		T. Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities 210: And if things break right, you’ll be on to something big.
1993		Tarantino & Avery Pulp Fiction [film script] 8: Yeah, it breaks down like this.
2000		Guardian Guide 13–19 May 52: When someone asks, ‘let me know how your job interview goes’, what they actually say is: ‘gimme the heads up and let me know how it breaks’.
2006		G. Iles Turning Angel 106: Look, things are breaking fast on this.

3. to conduct oneself.

1937

P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 64: Just how Henrietta is breakin’ wit these guys out at the Hacienda, I do not know.

4. to reveal or be revealed; to promote, to publicize, usu. in media context.

1934		S. Walker City Editor 202: In 1926, following eight months of investigation by Herbert Mayer, at that time editor of the New York tabloid, the Mirror, the case ‘broke’ again.
1946		K. Fearing Big Clock (2002) 72: When the story breaks, he may go straight to the police.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 92: When you gonna break somethin’ in the papers about him?
1954		Wodehouse Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 165: I’m telling you the biggest story that has broken around these parts for years.
1961		W.R. Burnett Conant 87: ‘ This is so big it scares me. It’ll scare [newspaper publisher] Dwight when it comes time to break it’.
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 12: Something broke while you were diddling around. News, they call it.
1999		Guardian Weekend 4 Dec. 44: The story breaks and I couldn’t believe it – little me [...] on the cover of four papers.
2007		A.C. Shepard Woodward and Bernstein 250: ‘We broke it [i.e. the identity of informant ‘Deep Throat’] before the story was published because we knew our British edition was going to the printing plants [...] with the British tabloids, we didn’t know how to keep a lid on it. So we broke it early’.

5. to render successful; to become successful.

1973		Zigzag Apr. n.p.: United Artists seem to have so many good bands, but they can’t seem to break them [KH].
1981		Sounds 24 Jan. n.p.: ‘Roxanne’ broke big [KH].
2005		in B. Coleman Rakim Told Me 42: ‘My whole thing [...] was breaking records, [...] If I liked a group I’d call up the artist and say: ‘Look, I'm gonna make your record hot’.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 351: This could be the deal that breaks this band wide open.
2018		I. Welsh Dead Man’s Trousers 26: It happened with Ivan, the Belgian DJ I broke big.

6. see break up v. (4) .