broke

Formsbrokes, broking, broked

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense of break.

   The storm broke several branches off the old oak tree.

   He broke the record that had stood for a decade.

   Note

   The everyday past tense, and it carries every meaning of break with it: a storm broke a branch, a trainer broke a horse to harness, grief broke a spirit, a cashier broke a large note into smaller ones. In standard English it stops at the simple past. The participle is broken, and the older participle broke is its own story. The business verb broke, past tense broked, is another word entirely.

2. 2
   adjectivecolloquial

   Without any money; penniless.

   He spent his whole paycheck the first week and was broke by Friday.

   Students often end up broke by the end of the semester.

   Similarpenniless, bankrupt, poor, destitute, impoverished

   Oppositerich, wealthy, flush

   Note

   Intensifiers cluster around it: dead broke and flat broke both mean down to the last cent. Though usually treated as absolute, it can be graded as more broke, most broke, or even broker and brokest. That comparative broker shares its spelling with the noun for a middleman, the word behind the business verb.

3. 3
   adjectivecolloquial

   Financially ruined; bankrupt.

   The airline finally went broke after years of mounting losses.

   Several small farms went broke when the harvest failed two seasons running.

   Similarbankrupt, bust, insolvent

   Oppositesolvent

   Note

   The bankruptcy sense reaches back at least to Samuel Pepys, who writes in 1665 of a man who "was like to be broke" while his creditors closed in. Here the word means ruin, and its natural verb is go: a firm, a farm or an airline goes broke. Compare the "penniless" sense, which describes an empty wallet rather than a collapsed business.

4. 4
   adjective

   Reduced in rank, especially through the loss of a military commission.

   The broke major appealed the ruling that had cost him his commission.

   Once a broke officer, he struggled to find work in civilian life.

   Note

   Naval and military English uses it for a career rather than a purse. An officer who was broke had been stripped of rank or commission and "rendered unfit to serve His Majesty at sea." It is the participle of break turned on a person. Because modern readers hear the "penniless" sense first, a phrase like a broke officer needs context to point toward rank, not money.

5. 5
   verbintransitive

   To act as a broker; to transact business on another's behalf.

   Merchants would broke for one another whenever new trade routes opened.

   He learned to broke for landowners eager to sell their estates.

   Note

   A back-formation, trimmed from the noun broker, and it inflects regularly: brokes, broking, broked. Its past is never broken, which belongs to break. The -ing form appears in compounds like bill-broking. Philippe Moore's The 1992 Guide to European Equity Markets calls the Spanish market "over-broked," with more than fifty brokers serving it.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   In papermaking, paper or board that is rejected during production and turned back into pulp.

   Excess broke from the trimming station is repulped at the end of every shift.

   Too much broke in the system can affect the quality of the finished sheet.

   Note

   A mill word that comes not from the past tense of break but from Old English gebroc, "fragment," an origin shared with the obsolete word for a fragment. Mills treat it as a mass noun ("if the broke accumulates"), though The World's Paper Trade Review (1914) has the plural brokes. Judge Diane Wood's 2014 opinion in NCR Corp. v. George A. Whiting Paper Co. shows it as a commodity, bought between mills through middlemen.

7. 7
   adjectiveslang

   Rich; wealthy, having come into a large amount of money.

   Once the royalties rolled in, the whole crew was broke and living large.

   They've been broke ever since the business took off, vacationing abroad every month.

   Similarrich, wealthy, loaded, flush

   Oppositepoor, penniless

   Note

   A slang clipping of broke off, and it turns the usual money meaning upside down: the speaker has come into cash rather than run out of it. Because the "penniless" sense is the one most listeners expect, this use needs a context that makes the wealth obvious, such as royalties, a hit or a windfall.

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