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Glite Dictionary
to break wind

to break wind

3 6.8
To let gas out of your bottom
  • phrasal verb
  • /breɪk wɪnd/
translation icon : tirar un pedo
  • When everyone laughed, I realized I had inadvertently broken wind among my friends.

Well, farting, I mean, as I'm quite sure that you know is when we break wind or pass gas, we are expelling gas.

Examples

  • It is natural for people to break wind occasionally, especially after a big meal.

  • The guy couldn't break wind.

    Cinderella Man (2005)

  • One of them kept breaking wind.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • How dare you break wind before me?

    Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

  • She wasn't built to break wind.

    F.A.R.T.: The Movie (1991)

  • You don't do anything and if you have to break wind, maybe a quiet, sneaky one.

    Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)

  • She's so tiny, she can break wind, you don't hardly smell it.

    The Man Who Loved Women (1983)

  • The next thing you know, we will be forbidden to break wind after eating beans, and we will have foot patrols of fart police.

    Blog text (1)

  • But if you break wind inside of your spacesuit, you're the only guy that's going to be smelling it, and you will smell it.

  • He tried to be discreet when he break wind during the quiet meeting.

Synonyms

to fart
vsto break wind
  • NSFW
96 5.3

To push gas out through the bottom, often with a sound

is the neutral term not focused on sound or smell
to pass gas
vsto break wind
  • NSFW
5 5.9

To let gas out from your bottom

is the same action but given as an alternative neutral phrasing
to pass wind
vsto break wind
  • UK
1 6.5

To let gas from inside your body out through your bottom

is more neutral and direct rather than polite or euphemistic
to let out a fart
vsto break wind
  • Offensive
1 8.1

To let air out from your bottom so it makes a sound

is the general neutral action and not specifically noisy
to outgas
vsto break wind
  • Informal
8.1

To let gas leave the stomach by burping or passing wind

restricts meaning to expelling gas through the anus not by burping

How Polite

to pass wind
  • UK
1 6.5
to pass gas
  • NSFW
5 5.9
to break wind
3 6.8
to fart
  • NSFW
96 5.3

Surface Forms

break wind infinitive
broke wind past
broken wind past participle
breaking wind present participle
breaks wind third person singular

Morphology

break + wind

The verb 'break' combined with 'wind' can suggest causing or releasing something, but understanding this MWE depends on knowing the less common sense of 'wind' = intestinal gas. Because many B1 learners know 'wind' primarily as moving air and the construction is a euphemistic idiom rather than a straightforward compositional phrase, the meaning is partially inferable but not fully predictable without prior exposure.

Etymology

Break wind comes from the simple image of letting air out of a bag: break means to let out and wind means the body's gas. That's why it means 'to pass gas'.