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Glite Dictionary
emotional breakdown

emotional breakdown

3 6.3
A severe time when someone cannot manage daily life because of strong feelings
  • noun
  • /ɪˈmoʊʃənl ˈbreɪkdaʊn/
translation icon : crisis emocional
  • The pressure of studying for exams caused him to experience an emotional breakdown that left him unable to focus.
  • suffer an emotional breakdown

And then once that happened, I had an emotional breakdown.

Examples

  • The connection between food and expression is underscored in the novel as Tita refuses to eat and speak following her emotional breakdown.

    Academic text (1995)

  • Adah was not happy, and this country was a dangerous place to be unhappy in because you have nobody to pour out your troubles to. That was why most lonely African students usually had emotional breakdowns: because they had no one to share their troubles with.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • You will have an emotional breakdown and it's OK.

  • Something in the police station changed after my emotional breakdown.

    Blog text (21)

  • Is Eric having an emotional breakdown too?

    Johnny Gruesome (2018)

  • I wrote about my sister's emotional breakdown in our kitchen last summer.

    Blog text (7)

  • And then before I know it, I am in the throes of an all-out emotional breakdown.

    Someone Like You... (2001)

  • I opposed the use of antidepressants for a great deal of my time in therapy, but after having an emotional breakdown to the point of considering suicide, I knew a change had to be made because I wanted to live to see things get better, which they have.

    Blog text (32)

  • While in the hospital following the opening car crash, Sarah has an eerie dream involving a darkened corridor that foreshadows later events in the film, and her emotional breakdown upon awakening and learning of the death of her family is difficult to watch.

    Blog text (25)

  • After weeks of stress at work, she finally had an emotional breakdown and needed time off to recover.

Synonyms

breakdown
vsemotional breakdown
  • Informal
120 3.9

A sudden collapse of mental health that stops someone from functioning normally

is limited to intense emotional distress rather than any health failure
nervous breakdown
vsemotional breakdown
  • Informal
52 5.3

A time when someone is so stressed or upset they cannot live normally and need medical help

is a severe emotional episode not necessarily framed as a medical condition
crack-up
vsemotional breakdown
1 7.2

A sudden emotional breakdown or a sudden burst of laughter

is serious distress rather than a sudden joking or light reaction

Antonyms

stability
363 3.1

Being steady and not likely to change

resiliency
9 4.6

The ability to recover quickly from a problem or change

How Distressed

collapse
350 4.1
emotional breakdown
3 6.3
stress
704 2.8
unease
19 4.4

Surface Forms

emotional breakdown singular
emotional breakdowns plural

Morphology

emotional + breakdown

The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'emotional' (relating to feelings) with 'breakdown' (a sudden failure of mental or emotional health): it refers to a collapse in emotional functioning. This follows a straightforward adjective+noun compositional pattern common across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

One popular image says the phrase emotional breakdown comes from thinking of a machine that suddenly stops working. Here the word breakdown means 'stop working' and emotional points to feelings, so it now means a time when a person's feelings are so bad they 'cannot cope'.