Word.ws English Dictionary

make a break for it

make a break for it verb: to attempt to escape; to flee; to run away.

Verb

make a break for it (third-person singular simple present makes a break for it, present participle making a break for it, simple past and past participle made a break for it)

  1. (idiomatic) To attempt to escape; to flee; to run away.
    • "By Gar! it was as well that he made a break for it before the note reached us! I guess he won't show his face in this valley again."1915, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 3, in The Valley of Fear
    • To restrain runaways who are too fragile to survive on the outside, Administrator Edward Farmilant of Chicago's Somerset nursing home gave the front door guard pictures of 36 patients who might make a break for it.2006 July 12, “Behavior: The New Runaways: Old Folks”, in Time

Synonyms of make a break for it

Forms of make a break for it

third-person singular presentmakes a break for it
present participlemaking a break for it
past participlemade a break for it
pastmade a break for it

Questions about make a break for it

What does make a break for it mean?
Make a break for it means to attempt to escape; to flee; to run away.
What part of speech is make a break for it?
Make a break for it is a verb.
What is the past tense of make a break for it?
The past tense of make a break for it is made a break for it.

Words near make a break for it in the dictionary

  1. make
  2. make a better door than a window
  3. make a big thing out of
  4. make a bolt for it
  5. make a book
  6. make a break for it
  7. make a career of
  8. make a career out of
  9. make a case
  10. make a case for
  11. make a cat laugh

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: make a break for it (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-make a break for it.ogg.

Cite this entry: “make a break for it.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/make_a_break_for_it. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.