"break cover" meaning in English

See break cover in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-break cover.ogg [Australia] Forms: breaks cover [present, singular, third-person], breaking cover [participle, present], broke cover [past], broken cover [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|break<,,broke,broken> cover}} break cover (third-person singular simple present breaks cover, present participle breaking cover, simple past broke cover, past participle broken cover)
  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see break, cover. Related terms: break character
    Sense id: en-break_cover-en-verb-MUtxnwg-
  2. (idiomatic, by extension) To disclose one's real thoughts and intentions. Tags: broadly, idiomatic Synonyms: show one's true colors, show one's true stripes
    Sense id: en-break_cover-en-verb-ixQSrUTi Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 30 70

Download JSON data for break cover meaning in English (1.8kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "breaks cover",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "breaking cover",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broke cover",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broken cover",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "break<,,broke,broken> cover"
      },
      "expansion": "break cover (third-person singular simple present breaks cover, present participle breaking cover, simple past broke cover, past participle broken cover)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see break, cover."
      ],
      "id": "en-break_cover-en-verb-MUtxnwg-",
      "links": [
        [
          "break",
          "break#English"
        ],
        [
          "cover",
          "cover#English"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "96 4",
          "word": "break character"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "30 70",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Government MPs sympathetic to the opposition's arguments are starting to break cover.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To disclose one's real thoughts and intentions."
      ],
      "id": "en-break_cover-en-verb-ixQSrUTi",
      "links": [
        [
          "disclose",
          "disclose"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, by extension) To disclose one's real thoughts and intentions."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "show one's true colors"
        },
        {
          "word": "show one's true stripes"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-break cover.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e9/En-au-break_cover.ogg/En-au-break_cover.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/En-au-break_cover.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "break cover"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "breaks cover",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "breaking cover",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broke cover",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broken cover",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "break<,,broke,broken> cover"
      },
      "expansion": "break cover (third-person singular simple present breaks cover, present participle breaking cover, simple past broke cover, past participle broken cover)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "break character"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see break, cover."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "break",
          "break#English"
        ],
        [
          "cover",
          "cover#English"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Government MPs sympathetic to the opposition's arguments are starting to break cover.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To disclose one's real thoughts and intentions."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "disclose",
          "disclose"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, by extension) To disclose one's real thoughts and intentions."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "show one's true colors"
        },
        {
          "word": "show one's true stripes"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-break cover.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e9/En-au-break_cover.ogg/En-au-break_cover.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/En-au-break_cover.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "break cover"
}

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.