to break up
11
3.3
- phrasal verb
- /breɪk ʌp/
:
interrumpir
- To keep the lecture engaging, the professor decided to break up the session with interactive quizzes.
- break up the monotony
- break up the routine
- break up the day
Now Jacob's question goes on for quite a long time, so let's break it up a little bit.
- Now Jacob's question goes on for quite a long time, so let's break it up a little bit.
- And so there's there's lots of interesting little sections like that that kind of break it up.
- If you can give me any feedback about warning signs or things that I could look out for so I know when to break it up, that'd be great.
- And it is even when we, we, we travel in the winter, we drive South, we break up the drive and we do our walks and it keeps us pain free.
- It kind of it breaks up the monotony and it will create these new sounds that you may not be used to hearing.
- And so I've tried to implement some things like try not to sit too long, trying to break up my sitting, finding ways to, to, to not be stuck on in a chair all day.
Examples
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Let's just break up into groups.
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The way we ended up helping people understand its capabilities was to break it up into three uses.
Blog text (32) -
OK, so so you can break up new teams, continue working on your games.
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It's nice to break it up a little.
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All right, break it up, you two.
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I broke up the meeting.
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OK, hate to break up this little party, but can I steal him?
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You have to break up your rhythm.
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To be more effective, make several study sessions to break up the information intake.
Blog text (27) -
Use bullets, short paragraphs, pictures, and any other means you can to break the text up.
Blog text (26)
Synonyms
∞
1.0
To stop an activity or end a habit
909
2.5
To stop someone speaking or an activity
620
3.8
To stop something suddenly before it is finished
496
1.4
To stop doing something for a short time to rest or relax before continuing
269
4.4
To interrupt normal activity and cause disorder
216
7.2
Stop doing something annoying when someone tells you
50
3.2
To stop something suddenly before it is finished, for example a talk or relationship
22
3.0
Cause someone or something to stop suddenly
2
4.3
Temporarily stop an activity to rest or think
To stop something before it finishes
Antonyms
How Complete
Surface Forms
Morphology
break + up
The meaning 'to interrupt or bring a pause' is directly derivable from combining 'break' (to stop or interrupt) with the particle 'up', which commonly adds a sense of separation/completion; this verb+particle composition follows a standard and predictable English pattern. Even though 'up' lacks a dictionary entry here, its usual contribution to meaning makes the expression readily inferable by a B1 learner who knows the constituents.
Etymology
Break up as an interruption comes from making a 'break' in an activity, like pausing a meeting so the flow is split into parts. That's why it means 'to interrupt or bring a pause to something'.