Word.ws English Dictionary

break one's chops

break one's chops verb: to give someone a hard time, harass, nag one to do something, bother.

Verb

break one's chops (third-person singular simple present breaks one's chops, present participle breaking one's chops, simple past broke one's chops, past participle broken one's chops)

  1. (idiomatic, slang) To give someone a hard time, harass, nag one to do something, bother.
    • “And why don’t you stop breaking my chops, eh?”1960, Lenny Bruce, 1:24 from the start, in The Palladium

Forms of break one's chops

third-person singular presentbreaks one's chops
present participlebreaking one's chops
pastbroke one's chops
past participlebroken one's chops

Questions about break one's chops

What does break one's chops mean?
Break one's chops means to give someone a hard time, harass, nag one to do something, bother.
What part of speech is break one's chops?
Break one's chops is a verb.
What is the past tense of break one's chops?
The past tense of break one's chops is broke one's chops.

Words near break one's chops in the dictionary

  1. break one off
  2. break one's arm patting oneself on the back
  3. break one's ass
  4. break one's back
  5. break one's balls
  6. break one's chops
  7. break one's duck
  8. break one's fall
  9. break one's fast
  10. break one's lance
  11. break one's maiden

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: break one's chops (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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