"break one's back" meaning in English

See break one's back in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-break one's back.ogg [Australia] Forms: breaks one's back [present, singular, third-person], breaking one's back [participle, present], broke one's back [past], broken one's back [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|break<,,broke,broken> one's back}} break one's back (third-person singular simple present breaks one's back, present participle breaking one's back, simple past broke one's back, past participle broken one's back)
  1. (idiomatic) Synonym of strive: to apply oneself completely to the point of physical exhaustion or incapacity. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: strive [synonym, synonym-of]
    Sense id: en-break_one's_back-en-verb-csaycOcq Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 95 5
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see break, back. Related terms: break someone's back
    Sense id: en-break_one's_back-en-verb-FaYdjQr4

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for break one's back meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "breaks one's back",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "breaking one's back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broke one's back",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broken one's back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "break<,,broke,broken> one's back"
      },
      "expansion": "break one's back (third-person singular simple present breaks one's back, present participle breaking one's back, simple past broke one's back, past participle broken one's back)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "95 5",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2008, Stuart Smith, The Mad Ramblings of a Monkey: The Nefarious Project, page 17",
          "text": "See, it's not that I'm a disagreeable person. I just have a motto that I won't break. If I'm asked to do something, I'll break my back to see that it's done.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of strive: to apply oneself completely to the point of physical exhaustion or incapacity."
      ],
      "id": "en-break_one's_back-en-verb-csaycOcq",
      "links": [
        [
          "strive",
          "strive#English"
        ],
        [
          "apply oneself",
          "apply oneself"
        ],
        [
          "completely",
          "completely"
        ],
        [
          "to the point",
          "to the point"
        ],
        [
          "physical",
          "physical"
        ],
        [
          "exhaustion",
          "exhaustion"
        ],
        [
          "incapacity",
          "incapacity"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Synonym of strive: to apply oneself completely to the point of physical exhaustion or incapacity."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "extra": "to apply oneself completely to the point of physical exhaustion or incapacity",
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "strive"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see break, back."
      ],
      "id": "en-break_one's_back-en-verb-FaYdjQr4",
      "links": [
        [
          "break",
          "break#English"
        ],
        [
          "back",
          "back#English"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "6 94",
          "word": "break someone's back"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
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      "audio": "en-au-break one's back.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/46/En-au-break_one%27s_back.ogg/En-au-break_one%27s_back.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/En-au-break_one%27s_back.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "break one's back"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "breaks one's back",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "breaking one's back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broke one's back",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "broken one's back",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "break<,,broke,broken> one's back"
      },
      "expansion": "break one's back (third-person singular simple present breaks one's back, present participle breaking one's back, simple past broke one's back, past participle broken one's back)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "break someone's back"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2008, Stuart Smith, The Mad Ramblings of a Monkey: The Nefarious Project, page 17",
          "text": "See, it's not that I'm a disagreeable person. I just have a motto that I won't break. If I'm asked to do something, I'll break my back to see that it's done.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of strive: to apply oneself completely to the point of physical exhaustion or incapacity."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "strive",
          "strive#English"
        ],
        [
          "apply oneself",
          "apply oneself"
        ],
        [
          "completely",
          "completely"
        ],
        [
          "to the point",
          "to the point"
        ],
        [
          "physical",
          "physical"
        ],
        [
          "exhaustion",
          "exhaustion"
        ],
        [
          "incapacity",
          "incapacity"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Synonym of strive: to apply oneself completely to the point of physical exhaustion or incapacity."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "extra": "to apply oneself completely to the point of physical exhaustion or incapacity",
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "strive"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
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      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see break, back."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "break",
          "break#English"
        ],
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          "back",
          "back#English"
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/En-au-break_one%27s_back.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "break one's back"
}

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.