Word.ws English Dictionary

break with tradition

break with tradition noun: a deviation from established practices or traditions.

Noun

break with tradition (plural breaks with tradition)

  1. A deviation from established practices or traditions.
    • The first [phase] calls for leaders impatient with the past, and temperamentally disposed to an irreverent break with tradition. They must be agitators who can fan the flames of discontent and gather forces with the strength to tear down the old.1996, Seymour R. Kesten, Utopian Episodes
    • The break with tradition that Francis, who has died aged 88 after suffering from double pneumonia, represented even managed to trump the shock value of the resignation of Benedict, who was the first pope for 600 years to take that option rather than die in office. Immediately, Bergoglio signalled...2025 April 21, Peter Stanford, “Pope Francis obituary”, in The Guardian

Verb

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

  1. To deviate from established practices or traditions.

Forms of break with tradition

Noun
pluralbreaks with tradition
Verb
third-person singular presentbreaks with tradition
present participlebreaking with tradition
pastbroke with tradition
past participlebroken with tradition

Questions about break with tradition

What does break with tradition mean?
Break with tradition means a deviation from established practices or traditions.
What part of speech is break with tradition?
Break with tradition can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of break with tradition?
The plural of break with tradition is breaks with tradition.

Words near break with tradition in the dictionary

  1. break ups
  2. break water
  3. break wedlock
  4. break wind
  5. break with
  6. break with tradition
  7. break-ax
  8. break-axe
  9. break-axes
  10. break-bones
  11. break-building

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: break with tradition (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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