breakup
Pluralbreakups
- 1The point at which a romantic relationship or friendship comes to an end, or the act of ending it.
She took the breakup hard and spent weeks avoiding the places they used to go together.
Their friendship survived college, but a fight over money led to a bitter breakup.
Similarsplit, separation
- 2The breaking apart of something, either by falling to pieces or by being divided into separate parts.
Investigators mapped the wreckage to work out the sequence of the aircraft's breakup in midair.
The breakup of the conglomerate into four independent companies took nearly two years.
Similardisintegration, division, split
Note
This noun comes from the phrasal verb break up, and it lets the event itself be timed and investigated: a conglomerate breaks up, and its breakup takes two years; an aircraft breaks up in midair, and investigators reconstruct its breakup from the wreckage. Its usual pattern is the breakup of something, with of naming what came apart. Said of people, the same noun means the end of a relationship.
- 3The time of year when the winter ice covering rivers, lakes and other bodies of water breaks apart; more generally, the spring season.
Breakup came late this year, and the river ice didn't go out until the middle of May.
We fly the fuel in before breakup, while the ice road to the mine is still solid.
Similarthaw
Oppositefreeze-up
Note
Here a season takes its name from the event that opens it. In Alaska and northern Canada, breakup is when the ice on rivers and lakes cracks apart and goes out, and the word stretches from that moment to the spring around it. Like spring or winter, it often goes without an article: before breakup, after breakup.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from the verb break up.