Word.ws English Dictionary

broken even

broken even is the past participle of break even.

Meaning of break even

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To neither gain nor lose a quantity of something, (especially) money.
    • After an entire night playing poker, he nearly broke even.
  2. (idiomatic) To stay the same; to neither advance nor regress.
    • It's a lot of work just to break even and keep the weeds down.

Questions about broken even

What is broken even the past participle of?
Broken even is the past participle of break even.

Words near broken even in the dictionary

  1. broken diagonal
  2. broken diagonals
  3. broken down
  4. broken down to brass tacks
  5. broken edge
  6. broken even
  7. broken fast
  8. broken field
  9. broken fields
  10. broken free
  11. broken from

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: broken even (page history and authors); break even (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: “broken even.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/broken_even. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.