to break through
71
4.2
- phrasal verb
- /ˈbreɪk θru/
- After months of hard work, she finally managed to break through the barriers in her research.
- break through barriers
- able to break through
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Watch on YouTubeAnd I come home and I finally broken through the inner circle of the cool girls.
- And I come home and I finally broken through the inner circle of the cool girls.
- terrified me. And then breaking through it just, it's been like the most rewarding.
- And then the next thing you know, you're breaking through barriers that you never thought possible.
- It's like you two or three steps from breaking through.
- And that's when God's breaking through and saying, hey, there's possibility out there for you.
- And I've also seen, conversely, scripts that look pretty hopeless that suddenly broke through.
- I reckon, you know, what's interesting is there's always somebody that like breaks through on the Internet.
- And not that long ago for me that the problem was breaking through or breaking out.
- You know, the first one was the first one and that's like breaking through to you.
- But the point is, is you've now clearly broke through into that.
- It was just, it was just breaking through like another like barrier of, of, of progress.
Examples
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Granted, a few women are breaking through traditional barriers and becoming presidents, prime ministers, cabinet members, and legislators.
Academic text (2007) -
Which is enough in our opinion to break through this last barrier between us and success.
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So who was the first artist that broke through the three M's?
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And so, I mean, breaking through is very, very difficult.
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You know, I want to break through the show business side.
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I think we really broke through there.
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I think I finally broke through to my creative unconscious.
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And then the next thing you know, you're breaking through barriers that you never thought possible.
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If I am going to break through to Jerusalem, I must concentrate, not dissipate.
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In 1995, our centennial year, we broke through the one billion dollar barrier in sales.
Academic text (1996)
Synonyms
659
2.8
To reach a place or goal after overcoming problems
477
2.9
Deal with and defeat a problem or fear
322
3.0
Manage to move beyond a problem or a bad feeling
296
3.4
To get through a hard time and be okay
98
3.6
To keep going despite problems until you finish
35
6.3
To pass an important limit or level
12
4.2
Continue and finish a task with strong effort when it is hard or you are tired
1
5.3
To keep trying and do well despite difficult times
1
4.6
Do well when you feel pressure
1
5.1
To continue to try hard even when things are difficult
Antonyms
How Successful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'to overcome an obstacle' is a metaphorical extension of the literal combination of 'break' (to force apart) + 'through' (to go to the other side), so a learner who knows both constituents can plausibly infer the meaning. However, the mapping from a physical action to an abstract achievement requires a figurative shift and may not be immediately predictable for all B1 learners without some exposure, so it is not fully transparent.
Etymology
Break through is like breaking a wall in a hard fight: you keep pushing until you break the barrier and get through it. That's why people use it to mean 'to overcome a difficulty' or 'to achieve success after a lot of effort'.