break loose

English

Etymology

From Middle English breken los, breken lous, breken lowse, equivalent to break +‎ loose.

Verb

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

1. To escape; to free oneself.
   • 1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published 1919, →OCLC, page 9:

     They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups.

   • 1953 May, “British Railways and the January Floods”, in Railway Magazine, page 301:

     On the Lincolnshire side of the Humber, the Pier Station at New Holland was put out of action when the ferry boat plying to and from Hull broke loose from its moorings.

Related terms

• all hell breaks loose