Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - broke

1. Broke is the past tense of break. 2. If you are broke, you have no money. (INFORMAL) What do you mean, I’ve got enough money? I’m as broke as you are. ADJ: v-link ADJ 3. If a company or person goes broke, they lose money and are unable to continue in business or to pay their debts. (INFORMAL BUSINESS) Balton went broke twice in his career. PHRASE: V inflects 4. If you go for broke, you take the most extreme or risky of the possible courses of action in order to try and achieve success. (INFORMAL) It was a sharp disagreement about whether to go for broke or whether to compromise. ? play safe PHRASE: V inflects BROKEN 1. Broken is the past participle of break. 2. A broken line is not continuous but has gaps or spaces in it. A broken blue line means the course of a waterless valley. = dotted ADJ: ADJ n 3. You can use broken to describe a marriage that has ended in divorce, or a home in which the parents of the family are divorced, when you think this is a sad or bad thing. She spoke for the first time about the traumas of a broken marriage... Children from broken homes are more likely to leave home before the age of 18. ADJ: ADJ n c darkgreen]disapproval 4. If someone talks in broken English, for example, or in broken French, they speak slowly and make a lot of mistakes because they do not know the language very well. Eric could only respond in broken English. ? fluent, perfect ADJ: ADJ n