Definition of "broken"

past participle of break  examples

Fragmented; in separate pieces.  quotations

1. (of a bone or body part) Fractured; having the bone in pieces.  examples

2. (of skin) Split or ruptured.  examples

3. (of a line) Dashed; made up of short lines with small gaps between each one and the next.  examples

4. (of sleep) Interrupted; not continuous.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • Then the circle would lie down again, and here and there a wolf would resume its broken nap.

     1906 May–October, Jack London, White Fang, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906

5. (meteorology, of the sky) Five-eighths to seven-eighths obscured by clouds; incompletely covered by clouds.

6. (of a melody) Having periods of silence scattered throughout; not regularly continuous.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • A cuckoo sat on a gate-post singing his broken June tune[.]

     1906, Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill, London: Penguin Books, published 1994, page 9

(of a promise, etc) Breached; violated; not kept.  examples

Non-functional; not functioning properly.

1. (of an electronic connection) Disconnected, no longer open or carrying traffic.  examples

2. (software, informal) Badly designed or implemented.  examples

3. (of language) Grammatically non-standard, especially as a result of being produced by a non-native speaker.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • His conversation was in French with Mailey and Roxton, who both spoke the language well, but he had to fall back upon broken English with Malone, who could only utter still more broken French in reply.

     1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019

   • Don't say it in Russian / Don't say it in German / Say it in broken English

     1979, “Broken English”, performed by Marianne Faithfull

4. (colloquial, US, of a situation) Not having gone in the way intended; saddening.  examples

(of a person) Completely defeated and dispirited; shattered; destroyed.  quotations  examples

Having no money; bankrupt, broke.  examples

(of land) Uneven.  quotations  examples

(sports and gaming, of a tactic or option) Overpowered; overly powerful; too powerful.  examples