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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

breakneck.

Dangerously fast; hell-for-leather.

9 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈbɹeɪkˌnɛk/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈbɹ(ʷ)eɪ̯kˌnɛk]Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbɹæɪkˌnek/Australia, New-Zealand[ˈbɹ(ʷ)æɪ̯kˌnek]Australia, New-Zealand

  1. Dangerously fast; hell-for-leather.

    breakneck pace
    He came running around the corner at a breakneck pace and couldn't stop in time to avoid hitting the fruit stand.
Where this word comes from

From break + neck.

adv/ˈbɹeɪkˌnɛk/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈbɹ(ʷ)eɪ̯kˌnɛk]Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbɹæɪkˌnek/Australia, New-Zealand[ˈbɹ(ʷ)æɪ̯kˌnek]Australia, New-Zealand

  1. Dangerously fast.

    not-comparable
Where this word comes from

From break + neck.

noun/ˈbɹeɪkˌnɛk/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈbɹ(ʷ)eɪ̯kˌnɛk]Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbɹæɪkˌnek/Australia, New-Zealand[ˈbɹ(ʷ)æɪ̯kˌnek]Australia, New-Zealand

  1. A fall that breaks the neck.

  2. A dangerous steep place from which one could fall and be injured.

Where this word comes from

From break + neck.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.