How to use breakneck in a sentence

10 example sentences · adjective, adverb, noun

Breakneck means dangerously fast; hell-for-leather. Example: “He came running around the corner at a breakneck pace and couldn't stop in time to avoid hitting the fruit stand.”

Examples of breakneck by meaning

adjectiveDangerously fast; hell-for-leather.

He came running around the corner at a breakneck pace and couldn't stop in time to avoid hitting the fruit stand.
The use of machine learning in this field is hardly new, but the breakneck pace at which it is improving is worrying, Lund says: “With the advent of ChatGPT, the future is bleak.”2023 June 27, Clea Skopeliti, “‘The future is bleak’: how AI concerns are shaping graduate’s career choices”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

adverbDangerously fast.

I ran breakneck another hundred yards.2009, Carlos Reid, Stalking the Warden, page 165

More sentences with breakneck

Charting modern China's breakneck pace is a staple of Jia Zhangke's cinema.2015 December 23, Benjamin Dodman, “Film review: ‘Mountains May Depart’ probes China’s latest leap forward”, in France 24, archived from…. From the entry Fenyang
Residential and industrial complexes are being built at breakneck speed.2023, Steffen Nijhuis, Yimin Sun, Eckart Lange, “Introduction: Adaptive Urban Transformation in the Pearl River Delta, China”, in Steffen…. From the entry PRD
The fact is that Reaganomics slowed down the breakneck economy and succeeded in defeating public enemy number one, runaway inflation.1983 January 17, William Safire, “Essay: The Midterm Crisis”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN…. From the entry public enemy number one
Somebody to Love is also taken at breakneck speed – this turns out to be an energy tablet before a leaden day.2019 August 15, Bob Stanley, “'Groovy, groovy, groovy': listening to Woodstock 50 years on – all 38 discs”, in The Guardian, archived from…. From the entry eviscerate
As China modernizes at breakneck speed, emphasizing the factorylike production of contemporary artists, the tradition of Shaanxi shadow theater is on the wane.2008 February 8, Karen Rosenberg, “Shadow Journey to the East on Rawhide Wings”, in New York Times. From the entry factorylike
Courts and Congress are struggling to keep up with the breakneck pace as the Trump administration dramatically reshapes the American government, national politics and international order.2025 February 7, Lisa Desjardins, Kyle Midura, “Courts and Congress struggle to keep up with Trump as he reshapes American government”, in…. From the entry reshape
You only have to look around to notice rushaholics whirling by at breakneck speed, whether it's the pizza promised in less than 30 minutes, or the one hour photo developing.1999, Mary Ellen Corcoran, Time Management: For People with No Time, William Waldron Publishers, →ISBN, page 102. From the entry rushaholic

Meaning of breakneck

adjective Dangerously fast; hell-for-leather.
adverb Dangerously fast.
noun A fall that breaks the neck.

Full definition of breakneck

Questions about breakneck in a sentence

How do you use breakneck in a sentence?: Breakneck is used as an adjective, adverb and noun. For example: “He came running around the corner at a breakneck pace and couldn't stop in time to avoid hitting the fruit stand.”
What is a short sentence with breakneck?: “I ran breakneck another hundred yards.”
What does breakneck mean?: Breakneck means dangerously fast; hell-for-leather.

Adapted from Wiktionary: breakneck (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use breakneck in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/breakneck. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.