break word

break (one's) word

To fail to act as one has promised. Tom said he'd help us move, but he broke his word and failed to show. If you keep flaking out, you're going to become known as someone who breaks their word.
See also: break, word
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

break one's word

not to do what one said one would do; not to keep one's promise. (Compare this with keep one's word.) Don't say you'll visit your grandmother if you can't go. She hates people to break their word. If you break your word, she won't trust you again.
See also: break, word
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

keep/break your ˈword

do/fail to do what you have promised: Do you think she’ll break her word and tell everyone?
See also: break, keep, word
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • break (one's) word
  • break one's word
  • keep/break your word
  • be on a hiding to nothing
  • break faith with (someone or something)
  • break/keep faith with somebody
  • fall flat
  • become unglued
  • stop at
  • stop at (something)
References in periodicals archive
Louis: EBR Writers Club Presents "Break Word," a "2010" Celebration in Poetry, Dance, Jazz & Exhibits in a Conch/us/nest-raising Atmosphere
Its members have been featured at the National Black Arts Festival and in the anthology Break Word With The World.
She created Lexonik, a programme of activities to break words down to syllables and their origins, in response to the needs of underachieving students in the North East of England.
Sami Boudelaa, Arabic is processed very differently from others languages because it demands that speakers constantly break words down into their root parts and assess their contexts to properly understand meaning.
When writing by hand, use hyphens to break words at the end of a line in order to maintain an orderly margin.
A new set of materials for teaching reading includes activities that break words down into letter and sound pairings, while also showing how to combine those sounds to form words.
It is easier for children to do this before they break words down further to individual letter sounds.
Watch the kindergarten teacher who asks her students to bounce up and down to break words into syllables, or the history teacher who asks Roger Sherman to stand and speak for the Colonies, or the math teacher who passes out the old abacus.
The findings support the notion that the reading and spelling deficit, characterized by an inability to break words down into the separate sounds that comprise them, stems in part from a failure to properly integrate letters with their speech sounds.
They struggle to break words down into units of sound.
Hyphens are also used to break words at the end of a line.
Hyphens are used between words that need to be joined for some reason - for example, an "up-to- the-minute" report - and to break words at the end of a line.
"Each child in my program is taught to break words down," says Pastor Archer.
I will break words up the way I'd split a flint I will grind words down like marble, like pigments So their dust rises to the nostrils of the god Fine-ground as flour for our daily bread Or powder on the cheeks of beautiful And less beautiful women, butterflies' pollen, salt Of the spindrift piercing the doors of the sea Like the air where a billion lightbulbs palpitate Like the grain of time burst in the hourglass I will set free those atoms of speech before Words themselves break me up, grind me down, Burn me to ash, scatter me, bury me
The cause of dyslexia is a hotly debated issue, but most researchers agree that the primary difficulty for those with the condition is a lack of phonological awareness-an inability to break words into individual phonemes.