Word.ws English Dictionary

broken the mold

broken the mold is the past participle 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 broken the mold

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

Words near broken the mold in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: broken 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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