break-even

American  

[breyk-ee-vuhn] / ˈbreɪkˈi vən /

Or breakeven

adjective

1. having income exactly equal to expenditure, thus showing neither profit nor loss.

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noun

1. break-even point.

2. Energy. the stage at which a fission or fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining.

break even British  

verb

1. (intr, adverb) to attain a level of activity, as in commerce, or a point of operation, as in gambling, at which there is neither profit nor loss

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noun

1. accounting

   1. the level of commercial activity at which the total cost and total revenue of a business enterprise are equal

   2. ( as modifier )

      breakeven prices

break even Idioms  

1. Neither gain nor lose in some venture, recoup the amount one invested. For example, If the dealer sells five cars a week, he'll break even. This expression probably came from one or another card game (some authorities say it was faro), where it meant to bet that a card would win and lose an equal number of times. It soon was transferred to balancing business gains and losses. Novelist Sinclair Lewis so used it in Our Mr. Wrenn (1914). The usage gave rise to the noun break-even point, for the amount of sales or production needed for a firm to recoup its investment. [Late 1800s]

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Etymology

Origin of break-even

An Americanism dating back to 1935–40

Example Sentences

Its recent error-correction results passed the “break-even” threshold, meaning a logical qubit performed better than its individual physical components.

From MarketWatch

The fallback to a 30% duty left the company at no better than a break-even rate on the trucks, Foreman said.

From The Wall Street Journal

He says the break-even point for barley is more than £200 per tonne, and around half of it is sold in contracts for future delivery.

From BBC

Break-even rates, another measure of inflation, have moved up only very slightly, while the Treasury yield curve hasn’t steepened meaningfully in the past few weeks, when news reports External link suggested that Hassett had become the front-runner.

From Barron's

The space-based Earth imaging company reported break-even per-share earnings in the third quarter on revenue of $81.3 million.

From Barron's