Word.ws English Dictionary

break the story

break the story verb: to be the first to address or publicize an issue, often a news story.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To be the first to address or publicize an issue, often a news story.
  2. (idiomatic, screenwriting jargon) To create or determine the outline of the story of a screenplay.

Forms of break the story

third-person singular presentbreaks the story
present participlebreaking the story
pastbroke the story
past participlebroken the story

Questions about break the story

What does break the story mean?
Break the story means to be the first to address or publicize an issue, often a news story.
What part of speech is break the story?
Break the story is a verb.
What is the past tense of break the story?
The past tense of break the story is broke the story.

Words near break the story in the dictionary

  1. break the mould
  2. break the news
  3. break the Sabbath
  4. break the seal
  5. break the silence
  6. break the story
  7. break the web
  8. break the wheel
  9. break through
  10. break time
  11. break times

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: break the story (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:

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