breakup
Americannoun
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breakups
plural
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disintegration; disruption; dispersal.
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the ending of a personal, especially a romantic, relationship.
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(in Alaska and Canada)
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the melting and loosening of ice in rivers and harbors during the early spring.
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the first day on which such ice is soft or dispersed enough to permit ships to use the waterways.
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Informal. an act or instance of being convulsed with laughter.
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temporary distortion in a televised picture.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of breakup
First recorded in 1785–95; noun use of verb phrase break up
Explanation
A breakup is when something comes apart or separates into pieces, like the breakup of a comet that eventually produces a meteor shower we can see from Earth. The breakup of ice on a lake in spring, melting and cracking into separate chunks, means it's no longer safe to walk on. When a relationship ends that's a breakup too: "After the breakup, they moved out and got separate apartments, and now they share custody of their cat." You can also use this word for the split between other entities, like the breakup of a church into different sects or the breakup of a treaty between several countries.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Agency for International Development, which aimed to grow the private sector after the Soviet Union’s breakup.
From Salon ● Sep. 16, 2026
It’s where Dakota Johnson apparently lives while going through her post-college identity crisis in the 2010s breakup movie How to Be Single.
From Slate ● Sep. 6, 2026
Such collisions can trigger the beginning of an iceberg's breakup.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 4, 2026
Facebook-owner Meta avoided the FTC’s breakup threat last year when a court ruled that enforcers misjudged its control over the social-media market.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
Like I’m somehow going to be able to talk her into reversing the breakup and living happily ever after.
From "Leah on the Offbeat" by Becky Albertalli
There are famous breakups, and there are ones that upset the universe’s parasocial order.
From Salon ● Apr. 30, 2026
But expanding rights piecemeal creates a nightmare for divorce lawyers, who found themselves building the plane in midair with gay breakups in the aughts and early 2010s.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 25, 2026
A lot of my friends are getting married, of course, but many of them have also been dealing with heavy personal news: breakups, layoffs and the deaths of family members and friends.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 19, 2026
Since then, there have been asset sales, stock buybacks, and breakups.
From Barron's ● Feb. 20, 2026
I’d had close friends go through devastating breakups, brought on by small problems left unattended or lapses in communication that led eventually to irreparable rifts.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
