- that has been damaged or injured; no longer whole or working correctly
- a broken window/plate
- a broken leg/arm/bone
- pieces of broken glass
- How did this dish get broken?
- The TV's broken.
- They opened the bag and found a broken bottle.
Extra ExamplesTopics Health problemsa2- The UN system is broken beyond repair.
- His front tooth was broken in half.
- One of her patients was a cat with a badly broken leg.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverbs- be
- get
- badly
- [usually before noun] not kept
- Voters are disillusioned with the government's broken promises.
- [usually before noun] ended or destroyed
- a broken marriage/engagement
- [usually before noun] not continuous; interrupted or disturbed
- a night of broken sleep
- a single broken white line across the road
- [only before noun] made weak and tired by illness or difficulties
- He was a broken man after the failure of his business.
- [only before noun] (of a language that is not your own) spoken slowly and with a lot of mistakes; not fluent
- to speak in broken English
- having a rough surface
- an area of broken, rocky ground
damaged
promise/agreement
relationship
not continuous
person
language
ground
Idioms
See broken in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee broken in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishlike a broken record
(British English also like a stuck record)
- in a way that keeps repeating a statement or opinion in an annoying way
- I hate sounding like a broken record, but I have to say again, we must do more to help.
Check pronunciation:
broken