Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell break

hear itbreak/breɪk/verbSounds

What it means: To separate into pieces.

In a sentence: Be careful not to break the toy!

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as brake or braek.

Sounds like, but is not: brake. Same sound, different spelling and meaning.

Same family: breaks, breaker, breakthrough, breakpoint, breakup. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Break” comes from Old English “brecan,” meaning to shatter or fracture. In tennis, the idea of a ‘break’ developed later as a metaphor for breaking or interrupting the normal pattern of each player winning on their own serve.

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