See them's the breaks on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "US origin.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "those are the breaks",
"tags": [
"alternative"
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},
{
"form": "them’s da breaks",
"tags": [
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"ref": "2022 July 7, Heather Stewart, quoting Boris Johnson, “Boris Johnson’s resignation speech: what he said, and what he meant”, in The Guardian:",
"text": "And I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world. But them’s the breaks.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"That is the way things happen; that's life."
],
"id": "en-them's_the_breaks-en-phrase-DtWr3Jv~",
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[
"that's life",
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"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) That is the way things happen; that's life."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "that's the way the cookie crumbles"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "c'est la vie"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "it is what it is"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"tags": [
"vulgar"
],
"word": "life's a bitch"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
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],
"word": "shit happens"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "so be it"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "so is life"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "so it goes"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "such is life"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that's that and this is this"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that's the way it goes"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that’s the way it plays"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that's the way life is"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that's the way the ball bounces"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that's the way the cookie crumbles"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that's the way the mop flops"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "them's the breaks"
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"word": "them's the breaks"
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{
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"form": "those are the breaks",
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"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"That is the way things happen; that's life."
],
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[
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],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) That is the way things happen; that's life."
],
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{
"word": "that's the way the cookie crumbles"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "c'est la vie"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "it is what it is"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"tags": [
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],
"word": "life's a bitch"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
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"word": "shit happens"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "so be it"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "so is life"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "so it goes"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "such is life"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that's that and this is this"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that’s the way it plays"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that's the way life is"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that's the way the ball bounces"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that's the way the cookie crumbles"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "that's the way the mop flops"
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{
"source": "Thesaurus:that's life",
"word": "them's the breaks"
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"word": "them's the breaks"
}
Download raw JSONL data for them's the breaks meaning in All languages combined (2.5kB)
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.