"break one's duck" meaning in All languages combined

See break one's duck on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Audio: en-au-break one's duck.ogg Forms: breaks one's duck [present, singular, third-person], breaking one's duck [participle, present], broke one's duck [past], broken one's duck [participle, past]
Etymology: From cricket, where duck means a score of zero. Head templates: {{en-verb|break<,,broke,broken> one's duck}} break one's duck (third-person singular simple present breaks one's duck, present participle breaking one's duck, simple past broke one's duck, past participle broken one's duck)
  1. (cricket) To score one's first run in an innings.
    Sense id: en-break_one's_duck-en-verb-C8O-87iQ Categories (other): Cricket, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 59 41 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 51 49 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 47 53 Topics: ball-games, cricket, games, hobbies, lifestyle, sports
  2. (idiomatic, British, by extension) To do something for the first time. Tags: British, broadly, idiomatic
    Sense id: en-break_one's_duck-en-verb-IeNUkEci Categories (other): British English, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 51 49 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 47 53

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "From cricket, where duck means a score of zero.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "breaks one's duck",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "breaking one's duck",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broke one's duck",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broken one's duck",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "break<,,broke,broken> one's duck"
      },
      "expansion": "break one's duck (third-person singular simple present breaks one's duck, present participle breaking one's duck, simple past broke one's duck, past participle broken one's duck)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Cricket",
          "orig": "en:Cricket",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "59 41",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "51 49",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To score one's first run in an innings."
      ],
      "id": "en-break_one's_duck-en-verb-C8O-87iQ",
      "links": [
        [
          "cricket",
          "cricket"
        ],
        [
          "score",
          "score"
        ],
        [
          "run",
          "run"
        ],
        [
          "innings",
          "innings"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(cricket) To score one's first run in an innings."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "ball-games",
        "cricket",
        "games",
        "hobbies",
        "lifestyle",
        "sports"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "51 49",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              277,
              291
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2011 January 5, Saj Chowdhury, “Newcastle 0 - 0 West Ham”, in BBC:",
          "text": "Best had come on as a substitute in the 1-0 win at Wigan last weekend and wasted a goalscoring opportunity after stumbling as he was about to shoot, so many of the fans in black and white could have been forgiven for thinking that perhaps the burly forward was destined not to break his duck.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To do something for the first time."
      ],
      "id": "en-break_one's_duck-en-verb-IeNUkEci",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, British, by extension) To do something for the first time."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "British",
        "broadly",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-break one's duck.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/43/En-au-break_one%27s_duck.ogg/En-au-break_one%27s_duck.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/En-au-break_one%27s_duck.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "break one's duck"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English verbs",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From cricket, where duck means a score of zero.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "breaks one's duck",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "breaking one's duck",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broke one's duck",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broken one's duck",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "break<,,broke,broken> one's duck"
      },
      "expansion": "break one's duck (third-person singular simple present breaks one's duck, present participle breaking one's duck, simple past broke one's duck, past participle broken one's duck)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "en:Cricket"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To score one's first run in an innings."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "cricket",
          "cricket"
        ],
        [
          "score",
          "score"
        ],
        [
          "run",
          "run"
        ],
        [
          "innings",
          "innings"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(cricket) To score one's first run in an innings."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "ball-games",
        "cricket",
        "games",
        "hobbies",
        "lifestyle",
        "sports"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              277,
              291
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2011 January 5, Saj Chowdhury, “Newcastle 0 - 0 West Ham”, in BBC:",
          "text": "Best had come on as a substitute in the 1-0 win at Wigan last weekend and wasted a goalscoring opportunity after stumbling as he was about to shoot, so many of the fans in black and white could have been forgiven for thinking that perhaps the burly forward was destined not to break his duck.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To do something for the first time."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, British, by extension) To do something for the first time."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "British",
        "broadly",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-break one's duck.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/43/En-au-break_one%27s_duck.ogg/En-au-break_one%27s_duck.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/En-au-break_one%27s_duck.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "break one's duck"
}

Download raw JSONL data for break one's duck meaning in All languages combined (2.2kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-05-29 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-20 using wiktextract (e937b02 and f1c2b61). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.