Word.ws English Dictionary

break a leg

break a leg interjection: good luck!; Do your best!; Said to someone wishing they perform well in a theatrical production or comparable endeavor.

Interjection

  1. (idiomatic) Good luck!; Do your best!; Said to someone wishing they perform well in a theatrical production or comparable endeavor.
    • Go out there and break a leg tonight. Put on a great show!
    • I told my friend to break a leg, before she went on stage.
    Synonyms:
    toi, toi, toi

Synonyms of break a leg

Origin of break a leg

Unknown; many unproven and widely debated theories exist. One of the most plausible is that it comes from Yiddish הצלחה און ברכה (hatslokhe un brokhe, “success and blessing”) through the heavy Ashkenazi Jewish influence in the American theater, via the misinterpretation in German as Hals- und Beinbruch (“neck and leg fracture”). The Yiddish phrase itself comes from Hebrew הַצְלָחָה וּבְרָכָה (hatzlakhá u-v'rakhá, “success and blessing”). Another possible origin was to wish opposite luck on the performer so as not to jinx the statement.

Questions about break a leg

What does break a leg mean?
Break a leg means good luck!; Do your best!; Said to someone wishing they perform well in a theatrical production or comparable endeavor.
What part of speech is break a leg?
Break a leg is an interjection.

Words near break a leg in the dictionary

  1. break a fly on a wheel
  2. break a fly on the wheel
  3. break a fly upon a wheel
  4. break a fly upon the wheel
  5. break a lance
  6. break a leg
  7. break a promise
  8. break a sweat
  9. break and enter
  10. break and enters
  11. break and entry

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: break a leg (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-break a leg.ogg.

Cite this entry: “break a leg.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/break_a_leg. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.