breaks bad

Verb

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

1. (colloquial) To go wrong; to go downhill.
   • "A woman came out from the East—Vermont, it was—and school-teaching was her line of business, only she hadn't been raised to it, and this was her first clatter at the game; but things had broke bad for her people, and ended in her pulling stakes and coming West all alone.1908, Rex Beach, The barrier, page 212
2. (Midwestern-US, Southern US, colloquial, especially) To go bad; to turn toward immorality or crime.
   • But somehow he broke bad when he was just a yearling boy, started running around at night with a bad crowd, drinking beer and wine, and fighting and getting in all kinds of trouble and wouldn't go to school.2005, Will D. Campbell, The Glad River, →ISBN, page 18

   Synonyms:

   go bad, go astray

   Antonyms:

   turn over a new leaf