break loose

Related to break loose: call for, roughshod, veered

break loose

To physically separate from something. This phrase can be applied to both people and things. The robber had tied me to a chair, but I was able to break loose and flee the house. I had to chase my dog down the street after he broke loose during our walk. Those bricks in the yard must have broken loose from the chimney.
See also: break, loose
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

break loose

(from someone) Go to break away (from someone).
See also: break, loose
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

break loose

Escape from restraint, as in The boat broke loose from its moorings, or He finally broke loose from the school of abstract expressionism. This expression also appears in all hell breaks loose, which indicates a state of fury or chaos, as in When Dad finds out you broke his watch, all hell will break loose, or When the children saw the dead pigeon in the hall, all hell broke loose. [Early 1400s]
See also: break, loose
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
See also:
  • break away
  • (as) sure as eggs (is eggs)
  • 57
  • and the rest
  • a penny for them
  • eggs is eggs
  • be twiddling (one's) thumbs
  • be twiddling your thumbs
  • and how
  • and how!
References in periodicals archive
This means that the big business decided to break loose from the traditional lifetime employment system.
Career counseling in Japan: Today and in the future
Mount Jewett Fire Department Chief Mike Mix said that the plant was designed with "explosion panels" which break loose by design to ease the pressure of a blast.
2 Killed in Temple-Inland Particleboard Plant Explosion
If your steering wheel should break loose from your grip and take a hard spin, the cross bars on the wheel can catch a thumb, possibly breaking or dislocating it.
Watch the Thumbs
"Is this the year to break loose?" you ask, but the question is merely rhetorical; the best reason you can come up with to support Nader is to "hold the Democratic Party accountable." That hardly constitutes breaking loose.
Letters to the Editor
The AAIB, in a bulletin on the incident, concluded that the exploding tyre caused the water deflector to break loose and 'flung it against the underside of the wing, causing the fuel tank puncture.'
Spray shield 'clue' to Concorde death flight
If he doesn't break loose, he will cut over the top to the middle of the lane.
The triangle offense off a 1-4 set
Icebergs are large chunks of ice that break loose from glaciers (rivers of ice).
A day in the life: Earth
Genuinely taken with the young man from New Orleans, Hardin also regarded Armstrong as a rising star who needed to break loose from Oliver.
Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy