English · Idiom Candidate

break the back of

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Defeat.

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

‘ These disposals will break the back of our £200 m bridging finance, taken on to fund the bid,’ said Mr McErlain.

It would have been nice for him to wind things up by breaking the back of Britain's opposition to integration.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Figurative class: Personification (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).

Common questions

What does “break the back of” mean?

Defeat.

Is “break the back of” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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