What does broken mean?
Broken describes something that has been fractured, shattered, or otherwise damaged so that it no longer holds together or works as it should — a broken glass, a broken elevator, a broken bone. Beyond physical damage, it extends to things that have failed or been violated: a broken promise, a broken system, a broken heart. The word carries strongly negative connotations of loss, failure, and disruption, though in modern colloquial use it can be softened for emphasis, as in "I'm broken" after an exhausting workout, or used affectionately in expressions like "fixing what's broken." It serves double duty grammatically: it is the past participle of the verb "break," yet it also stands as a true adjective, taking adverbs like "badly" or "completely" before it. Its versatility makes it one of the most frequently used adjectives in everyday English, appearing everywhere from repair shops to poetry.
Damaged, fractured, or no longer functioning or whole.
"She swept up the pieces of the broken mirror."
Functions as both past participle of "break" and an independent attributive or predicative adjective.
Past participle of the verb "break"; used in perfect tenses and passive constructions.
"The window had been broken by the stray cricket ball."
The same ancient root that gave us "broken" also gave us "fragile," "fracture," and even "suffrage" — all tracing back to a prehistoric word meaning simply to shatter.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of broken
Broken is the past participle of "break," deriving from Old English "brecan," meaning to shatter or crush. This traces back to Proto-Germanic *brekaną and ultimately the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰreg-, meaning "to break." That same root gave Latin "frangere," source of English borrowings such as "fracture," "fraction," and "fragile," making these distant cousins of "broken" through shared ancestry rather than direct descent.
Related word forms
How broken is actually used
"Broken" functions both as the past participle of the verb "break" and as a fully independent adjective, which is why phrases like "a broken window" are natural while "*an opened letter" sounds stilted by comparison.
Easily confused with broken
"Broke" means having no money (or is the simple past of "break"), while "broken" means damaged, fractured, or no longer functioning.