Word.ws English Dictionary

broke the mold

broke the mold is the simple past of break the mold.

Meaning of break the mold

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)
  2. (idiomatic) To make it impossible for an identical copy to be made.
    • When they made that one, they broke the mold.

Questions about broke the mold

What is broke the mold the simple past of?
Broke the mold is the simple past of break the mold.

Words near broke the mold in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: broke the mold (page history and authors); break the mold (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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Cite this entry: “broke the mold.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/broke_the_mold. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.