Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Showing results for break the news. Search instead for breaking+news.
Synonyms

break the news

Idioms  

  1. Make something known, as in We suspected that she was pregnant but waited for her to break the news to her in-laws. This term, in slightly different form (break a matter or break a business), dates from the early 1500s. Another variant is the 20th-century journalistic phrase, break a story, meaning “to reveal a news item or make it available for publication.”

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

So when I called him to break the news, he started crying.

From Salon • Mar. 24, 2026

When Neil died in 1965, it fell to Kai to phone their parents, who were in Italy, and break the news.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 18, 2025

Balde said he was "devastated" and had to break the news to his wife.

From Barron's • Dec. 17, 2025

In April 1968, when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, it fell to Robert F. Kennedy to break the news to a largely Black crowd in Indianapolis.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 6, 2025

At the end of the letter I thought it honest to break the news officially that I was in Cambridge and would remain there until a decision was made.

From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.