break open
phrasal verb
broke open; broken open; breaking open; breaks open
: to open or to cause (something) to open suddenly
The pods broke open and the seeds scattered on the wind.
The police broke open the door.
The burglars broke the locked safe open.
Examples of break open in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The rest of the crimes followed the same pattern: Sometime between 1:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., the suspects managed to break open a security gate and the front door to a store before emptying the register.
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Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News, 5 July 2025
The Wolves did it as a team in the seventh, batting around to score five runs and break open a 1-1 tie.
—Michael Osipoff, Chicago Tribune, 21 June 2025
Tesla stocks plummeted on Thursday as the simmering feud between the company’s CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump broke open.
—Chantelle Lee, Time, 5 June 2025
In the fall of 2017, the dam of accusations broke open with back-to-back exposés in The New York Times and The New Yorker.
—Ilya Marritz, NPR, 3 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for break open
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Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News, 5 July 2025
The Wolves did it as a team in the seventh, batting around to score five runs and break open a 1-1 tie.
—Michael Osipoff, Chicago Tribune, 21 June 2025
Tesla stocks plummeted on Thursday as the simmering feud between the company’s CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump broke open.
—Chantelle Lee, Time, 5 June 2025
In the fall of 2017, the dam of accusations broke open with back-to-back exposés in The New York Times and The New Yorker.
—Ilya Marritz, NPR, 3 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for break open
Cite this Entry
“Break open.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/break%20open. Accessed 20 Jul. 2025.
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