to break through
45
4.2
- phrasal verb
- /ˈbreɪk θru/
:
abrirse paso
- After months of hard work, she finally managed to break through the barriers in her research.
- break through barriers
- able to break through
And 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
-
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.
-
So who was the first artist that broke through the three M's?
-
And so, I mean, breaking through is very, very difficult.
-
You know, I want to break through the show business side.
-
I think we really broke through there.
-
I think I finally broke through to my creative unconscious.
-
And then the next thing you know, you're breaking through barriers that you never thought possible.
-
If I am going to break through to Jerusalem, I must concentrate, not dissipate.
-
In 1995, our centennial year, we broke through the one billion dollar barrier in sales.
Academic text (1996)
Synonyms
429
2.9
Deal with and defeat a problem or fear
332
2.8
To reach a place or goal after overcoming problems
270
3.0
Manage to move beyond a problem or a bad feeling
218
3.4
To get through a hard time and be okay
43
6.3
To pass an important limit or level
39
3.6
To keep going despite problems until you finish
8
4.2
Continue and finish a task with strong effort when it is hard or you are tired
1
4.6
Do well when you feel pressure
To keep trying and do well despite difficult times
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'.