"break a promise" meaning in English

See break a promise in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: breaks a promise [present, singular, third-person], breaking a promise [participle, present], broke a promise [past], broken a promise [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|break<,,broke,broken> a promise}} break a promise (third-person singular simple present breaks a promise, present participle breaking a promise, simple past broke a promise, past participle broken a promise)
  1. To fail to keep a promise.
    Sense id: en-break_a_promise-en-verb-kWQWizy4 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for break a promise meaning in English (1.4kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "breaks a promise",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "breaking a promise",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broke a promise",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broken a promise",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "break<,,broke,broken> a promise"
      },
      "expansion": "break a promise (third-person singular simple present breaks a promise, present participle breaking a promise, simple past broke a promise, past participle broken a promise)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2023 June 14, “Network News: NR and SWR apologise as Ryde Pier reopening misses festival deadline”, in RAIL, number 985, page 11",
          "text": "Ryde Pier will remain closed to trains until July 10, Network Rail and South Western Railway have admitted. This means they will break a promise to have the pier reopened and trains running in time for the Isle of Wight Festival from June 15-18, one of the largest events in the island's tourism calendar.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To fail to keep a promise."
      ],
      "id": "en-break_a_promise-en-verb-kWQWizy4",
      "links": [
        [
          "fail",
          "fail"
        ],
        [
          "keep",
          "keep"
        ],
        [
          "promise",
          "promise"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "break a promise"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "breaks a promise",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "breaking a promise",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broke a promise",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broken a promise",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "break<,,broke,broken> a promise"
      },
      "expansion": "break a promise (third-person singular simple present breaks a promise, present participle breaking a promise, simple past broke a promise, past participle broken a promise)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2023 June 14, “Network News: NR and SWR apologise as Ryde Pier reopening misses festival deadline”, in RAIL, number 985, page 11",
          "text": "Ryde Pier will remain closed to trains until July 10, Network Rail and South Western Railway have admitted. This means they will break a promise to have the pier reopened and trains running in time for the Isle of Wight Festival from June 15-18, one of the largest events in the island's tourism calendar.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To fail to keep a promise."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "fail",
          "fail"
        ],
        [
          "keep",
          "keep"
        ],
        [
          "promise",
          "promise"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "break a promise"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.