jailbreak

/ˈd͡ʒeɪlˌbɹeɪk/

jailbreak noun: an escape from prison.

Noun

jailbreak (plural jailbreaks)

An escape from prison.
A modification to a closed platform's technical restrictions that enables installation or execution of software (or OS modification) the platform's original design was intended to prevent. Typical devices are iPhones and game consoles.
(artificial intelligence) A prompt to a large language model which frees it from its ethical restrictions.
- DAN has become a canonical example of what's known as a "jailbreak" — a creative way to bypass the safeguards OpenAI built in to keep ChatGPT from spouting bigotry, propaganda or, say, the instructions to run a successful online phishing scam. From charming to disturbing, these jailbreaks reveal...2023 February 14, Will Oremus, “Meet ChatGPT's evil twin, DAN”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 Mar 2023
- The jailbreak of ChatGPT has been in operation since December, but users have had to find new ways around fixes OpenAI implemented to stop the workarounds.2023 March 8, Josh Taylor, “ChatGPT's alter ego, Dan: users jailbreak AI program to get around ethical safeguards”, in The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...
A rule present in some ice hockey leagues that causes a penalty to end if the short-handed team scores.
1. A goal scored in this situation.

Verb

jailbreak (third-person singular simple present jailbreaks, present participle jailbreaking, simple past jailbroke, past participle jailbroken)

To escape from prison.
(transitive) To modify the firmware of an electronic device, especially a mobile phone, in order to remove restrictions that prevent it from running unofficial software.
- Unofficially, it has been possible to “Jailbreak” iOS and gain access to the underlying Unix and kernel environment, but this voids the warranty.2012, Ole Henry Halvorsen, Douglas Clarke, OS X and iOS Kernel Programming, Apress, →ISBN, page 21
- In order to gain true root access to a mobile device, a user has to either jailbreak (iOS) or root (Android/Windows) the device.2016, Mike Meyers, CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Ninth Edition (Exams 220-901 & 220-902), McGraw Hill Professional, →ISBN, page 1172
Synonyms:

root
(artificial intelligence) To free a large language model from its ethical restrictions using prompt injection.
- ChatGPT is far from perfect. Twitter has been flooded with examples of "jailbreaking" ChatGPT — that is, tricking it into hallucinations or misalignment.2022 December 16, Farhad Manjoo, “ChatGPT Has a Devastating Sense of Humor”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 16 Mar 2023
- These are young technologies. Rather than jailbreaking AI tools to simulate conversations between the rapper Ye and Adolf Hitler, or waiting uneasily for them to become sentient, why don't we approach them as good parents would — and talk to them, or read to them, the way we do to children?2022 December 27, Alyssa Rosenberg, “Something AI can't do: Tell a great bedtime story”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...
To score while short-handed in a league with the "jailbreak" rule.

jailbreak meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

jailbreak in Hindi

जेलब्रेक

jailbreak in Marathi

जेलब्रेक, जेलब्रेक करण्यासाठी, जेलब्रेक करणे

jailbreak in Urdu

جیل بریکنگ, جیل بریک کرنا

jailbreak in Bengali

জেলব্রেক

More languagesFewer languages

jailbreak in Telugu: జైల్బ్రేక్, జైల్ బ్రేకింగ్, జైల్బ్రేకింగ్
jailbreak in Malayalam: ജയിൽ ബ്രേക്കിംഗ്
jailbreak in Kannada: ಜೈಲ್ಬ್ರೇಕ್
jailbreak in Gujarati: જેલબ્રેક, જેલબ્રેકિંગ, જેલબ્રેક કરવા માટે
jailbreak in Nepali: जेलब्रेक, जेलब्रेकिङ, जेलब्रेकिङ्ग

Examples of jailbreak in a sentence

From charming to disturbing, these jailbreaks reveal the chatbot is programmed to be more of a people-pleaser than a rule-follower.2023 February 14, Will Oremus, “Meet ChatGPT's evil twin, DAN”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company...
It's for this reason that Alex Albert, a computer science student at the University of Washington, created Jailbreak Chat, a site that hosts a collection of ChatGPT jailbreaks.2023 March 22, Chloe Xiang, “The Amateurs Jailbreaking GPT Say They're Preventing a Closed-Source AI Dystopia”, in VICE, archived from the...
The desire to jailbreak ChatGPT so that it violates safety filters follows a pattern of use by people that are dissatisfied by the moderation of the chatbot.2023 February 8, Chloe Xiang, “People are 'Jailbreaking' ChatGPT to Make It Endorse Racism, Conspiracies”, in VICE, archived from the...

Synonyms of jailbreak

root

Forms of jailbreak

Noun
plural	jailbreaks
alternative form	jail break
Verb
third-person singular present	jailbreaks
present participle	jailbreaking
past	jailbroke
past participle	jailbroken

Plural of jailbreak: jailbreaks

Origin of jailbreak

From jail + break.

Questions about jailbreak

What does jailbreak mean?: Jailbreak means an escape from prison.
What is jailbreak in Hindi?: Jailbreak in Hindi is जेलब्रेक. See Jailbreak meaning in Hindi.
How do you use jailbreak in a sentence?: From charming to disturbing, these jailbreaks reveal the chatbot is programmed to be more of a people-pleaser than a rule-follower.
What part of speech is jailbreak?: Jailbreak can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce jailbreak?: Jailbreak is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒeɪlˌbɹeɪk/.
What is the plural of jailbreak?: The plural of jailbreak is jailbreaks.

Words near jailbreak in the dictionary

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-jailbreak.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-jailbreak.wav.

Cite this entry: “jailbreak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/jailbreak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.