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broken.

Fragmented; in separate pieces.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈbɹəʊ.kn̩/Received-Pronunciation/ˈbɹoʊ.kɪn/General-American/ˈbɹoʊ.kən/General-American

  1. Fragmented; in separate pieces.

    One recent morning the team had to replace a broken weather research station.

  2. Fragmented; in separate pieces. Fractured; having the bone in pieces.

    My arm is broken!
    The ground was littered with broken bones.

  3. Fragmented; in separate pieces. Split or ruptured.

    A dog bit my leg and now the skin is broken.

  4. Fragmented; in separate pieces. Dashed; made up of short lines with small gaps between each one and the next.

  5. Fragmented; in separate pieces. Interrupted; not continuous.

  6. Fragmented; in separate pieces. Five-eighths to seven-eighths obscured by clouds; incompletely covered by clouds.

    Tomorrow: broken skies.

  7. Fragmented; in separate pieces. Having periods of silence scattered throughout; not regularly continuous.

  8. Breached; violated; not kept.

    broken promises of neutrality
    broken vows

  9. Non-functional; not functioning properly.

    I think my doorbell is broken.

  10. Non-functional; not functioning properly. Disconnected, no longer open or carrying traffic.

  11. Non-functional; not functioning properly. Badly designed or implemented.

    informal
    This is the most broken application I've seen in a long time.

  12. Non-functional; not functioning properly. Grammatically non-standard, especially as a result of being produced by a non-native speaker.

  13. Non-functional; not functioning properly. Not having gone in the way intended; saddening.

    US · colloquial
    Oh man! That is just broken!

  14. Completely defeated and dispirited; shattered; destroyed.

    The bankruptcy and divorce, together with the death of his son, left him completely broken.

  15. Having no money; bankrupt, broke.

  16. Uneven.

  17. Overpowered; overly powerful; giving a player too much power.

    This item is incredibly broken. I win almost every run I get to use it.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English broken, from Old English brocen, ġebrocen, from Proto-Germanic *brukanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *brekaną (“to break”). Cognate with Dutch gebroken (“broken”), German Low German broken (“broken”), German gebrochen (“broken”). Morphologically broke + -n.

verb/ˈbɹəʊ.kn̩/Received-Pronunciation/ˈbɹoʊ.kɪn/General-American/ˈbɹoʊ.kən/General-American

  1. past participle of break

    form-of · participle · past
Where this word comes from

From Middle English broken, from Old English brocen, ġebrocen, from Proto-Germanic *brukanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *brekaną (“to break”). Cognate with Dutch gebroken (“broken”), German Low German broken (“broken”), German gebrochen (“broken”). Morphologically broke + -n.

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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.