Word.ws English Dictionary

break the mold

break the mold verb: to depart from a traditional pattern; to defy convention.

break the mold: to depart from a traditional pattern; to defy convention
Image: Carole Raddato from Frankfurt, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

break the mold (third-person singular simple present breaks the mold, present participle breaking the mold, simple past broke the mold, past participle broken the mold)

  1. (idiomatic) To depart from a traditional pattern; to defy convention.
    • A man has to be what he is, Joey. Can't break the mould. I tried it and it didn't work for me.1953, A. B. Guthrie Jr., Jack Sher, Shane, spoken by Shane (Alan Ladd)
    • President Bush joined in; his 1991 education message called for new kinds of schools, ones that "broke the mold".1997, Theodore R. Sizer, Horace's School: Redesigning the American High School, page 12
  2. (idiomatic) To make it impossible for an identical copy to be made.
    • When they made that one, they broke the mold.
    • When God made her, He broke the mold.

break the mold meaning in Bengali

break the mold in Bengali

প্রথা অমান্য করা

Forms of break the mold

third-person singular presentbreaks the mold
present participlebreaking the mold
pastbroke the mold
past participlebroken the mold
alternative formbreak the mould

Origin of break the mold

From the use of molds to make multiple replicas of solid objects using moldable materials.

Questions about break the mold

What does break the mold mean?
Break the mold means to depart from a traditional pattern; to defy convention.
What is break the mold in Bengali?
Break the mold in Bengali is প্রথা অমান্য করা. See Break the mold meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is break the mold?
Break the mold is a verb.
What is the past tense of break the mold?
The past tense of break the mold is broke the mold.

Words near break the mold in the dictionary

  1. break the fourth wall
  2. break the ice
  3. break the internet
  4. break the internets
  5. break the interwebs
  6. break the mold
  7. break the mould
  8. break the news
  9. break the Sabbath
  10. break the seal
  11. break the silence

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: break the mold (page history and authors); break the mold (Bengali Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

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

Cite this entry: “break the mold.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/break_the_mold. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.