them's the breaks
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
That's just the way things go sometimes
Literally: those are the breaks
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
You never know what the Dead are going to play — they don't themselves — and according to the experts in the audience, tonight was below par.
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. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “them's the breaks” mean?
That's just the way things go sometimes Literally: those are the breaks
Is “them's the breaks” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.