"break the fourth wall" meaning in English

See break the fourth wall in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-break the fourth wall.ogg [Australia] Forms: breaks the fourth wall [present, singular, third-person], breaking the fourth wall [participle, present], broke the fourth wall [past], broken the fourth wall [participle, past]
Etymology: break + the + fourth wall Etymology templates: {{m|en|break}} break, {{m|en|the}} the, {{m|en|fourth wall}} fourth wall Head templates: {{en-verb|break<,,broke,broken> the fourth wall}} break the fourth wall (third-person singular simple present breaks the fourth wall, present participle breaking the fourth wall, simple past broke the fourth wall, past participle broken the fourth wall)
  1. (idiomatic, fiction) To apparently communicate with reality directly, such as when characters of literature comment on the existence of a reader. Tags: idiomatic Categories (topical): Fiction Translations (direct communication with the viewer or reader): rompi la kvaran muron (Esperanto), briser le quatrième mur (French), მეოთხე კედლის გარღვევა (meotxe ḳedlis garɣveva) (Georgian), მეოთხე კედლის გატეხვა (meotxe ḳedlis gaṭexva) (Georgian), rompere la quarta parete (Italian), derrubar a quarta parede (Portuguese), romper la cuarta pared (Spanish)

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for break the fourth wall meaning in English (3.8kB)

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        "1": "en",
        "2": "break"
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      "form": "breaks the fourth wall",
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    {
      "form": "broke the fourth wall",
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      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Fiction",
          "orig": "en:Fiction",
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            "Fundamental"
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      "glosses": [
        "To apparently communicate with reality directly, such as when characters of literature comment on the existence of a reader."
      ],
      "id": "en-break_the_fourth_wall-en-verb-6SnWJUPP",
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        [
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        [
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, fiction) To apparently communicate with reality directly, such as when characters of literature comment on the existence of a reader."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
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        "fiction",
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        "publishing"
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        {
          "code": "eo",
          "lang": "Esperanto",
          "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
          "word": "rompi la kvaran muron"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
          "word": "briser le quatrième mur"
        },
        {
          "code": "ka",
          "lang": "Georgian",
          "roman": "meotxe ḳedlis garɣveva",
          "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
          "word": "მეოთხე კედლის გარღვევა"
        },
        {
          "code": "ka",
          "lang": "Georgian",
          "roman": "meotxe ḳedlis gaṭexva",
          "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
          "word": "მეოთხე კედლის გატეხვა"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
          "word": "rompere la quarta parete"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
          "word": "derrubar a quarta parede"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
          "word": "romper la cuarta pared"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
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      "audio": "en-au-break the fourth wall.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/41/En-au-break_the_fourth_wall.ogg/En-au-break_the_fourth_wall.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/En-au-break_the_fourth_wall.ogg",
      "tags": [
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      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "break the fourth wall"
}
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    },
    {
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      },
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      ],
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        "(idiomatic, fiction) To apparently communicate with reality directly, such as when characters of literature comment on the existence of a reader."
      ],
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        "idiomatic"
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        "fiction",
        "literature",
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "eo",
      "lang": "Esperanto",
      "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
      "word": "rompi la kvaran muron"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
      "word": "briser le quatrième mur"
    },
    {
      "code": "ka",
      "lang": "Georgian",
      "roman": "meotxe ḳedlis garɣveva",
      "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
      "word": "მეოთხე კედლის გარღვევა"
    },
    {
      "code": "ka",
      "lang": "Georgian",
      "roman": "meotxe ḳedlis gaṭexva",
      "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
      "word": "მეოთხე კედლის გატეხვა"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
      "word": "rompere la quarta parete"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
      "word": "derrubar a quarta parede"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "direct communication with the viewer or reader",
      "word": "romper la cuarta pared"
    }
  ],
  "word": "break the fourth wall"
}

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.