Dictionary

break free en · VERB

Meanings

1. To liberate oneself; to free oneself; to become free (from or of something or someone).
   • [A]n elephant was captured for a time by the king's hunters and, ere he broke free, beringed with a grievous leg-iron. 1900 December – 1901 October, Rudyard Kipling, chapter IX, in Kim, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1901, →OCLC, page 235:
   • When the soul breaks free from the arms of a superstition, bits of the claws and talons break themselves off in him. It is not the work of a day to squeeze them out. 1883 June, Ralph Iron [pseudonym; Olive Schreiner], “Times and Seasons”, in The Story of an African Farm, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: H. M. Caldwell Company, →OCLC, part II, section VII, page 171:
   • During the storm, the boat broke free from its moorings.
   • If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us is that life will not be contained- life breaks free, it expands to new territories, and it crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously but,... uh... well, there it is. 1993, Jurassic Park, Universal Pictures, →OCLC:
   • 1721, Aaron Hill, The Fatal Extravagance, London: T. Jauncy, [Scene 1], p. 9, […] I saw his Lady, Wild, with a Storm of Grief! Her Hair dishevel’d! And her loose Robes, blown, careless, by the Wind! Struggling, with weeping Servants, to break free.
   • […] the chopper slowed and wheeled around the treetop. It was one of the big ones whose crown had broken free of the rest to spread luxuriantly in the upper air […] 1968, Desmond Bagley, The Vivero Letter, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Chapter 8, section 7, p. 189:
   • To address the climate crisis, we need to break free of our addiction to fossil fuels.
   • Tottenham left-back Benoit Assou-Ekotto broke free after a clever one-two with Emmanuel Adebayor, only to see his shot brilliantly saved by the Norwich keeper. 2012 April 9, Mandeep Sanghera, “Tottenham 1 - 2 Norwich”, in BBC Sport:

Forms

Relateds

emancipate

Translations (4)

pl uwolnić się (to gain freedom) · pl oswobadzać się (to gain freedom) · pl oswobodzić się (to gain freedom) · pl uwalniać się (to gain freedom)