clean break
noun
: complete separation from something
When he left home, he made a clean break with the past.
Examples of clean break in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The vast majority of Syrians—including the country’s businesspeople and religious authorities, as well as those in its overstaffed but experienced bureaucracy—appear to support a clean break with the corruption and mismanagement of the Assad regime.
—
Volker Perthes, Foreign Affairs, 24 Jan. 2025
Since its founding as a republic, Turkey had been charting a future based on a clean break with its Ottoman past, a time when Constantinople ruled Syria, but Erdogan openly embraced that past as a means to establish Turkey as a major power.
—Alia Malek, New York Times, 17 Jan. 2025
The decision to elevate Mr. Driscoll and Mr. Kissane to the seventh floor of bureau headquarters where senior leadership sits signals that the Trump administration wanted a clean break after lengthy F.B.I. investigations that ensnared the president.
—Adam Goldman, New York Times, 20 Jan. 2025
Her approach is a clean break from the 19th-century tradition of American landscape art, in which de facto propagandists like Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Cole depicted land as radiant and virginal, the birthright of any colonial buccaneer drunk on Manifest Destiny.
—Jeremy Lybarger, ARTnews.com, 6 Jan. 2025
Scott’s Tom Ripley was a clean break from that of Matt Damon; instead of a petulant pretty boy seized by envy and lust, this Ripley was older (Scott is in his late forties) and scarier, a lonesome manipulator with a murderous gleam in his eye.
—Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 9 Dec. 2024
Dawn Richard + Spencer Zahn / Zebulon / Dec. 2
Richard deserves a clean break from any Diddy news in her life.
—Mikael Wood, Los Angeles Times, 24 Nov. 2024
This is not a clean break for the Tsitsipas family.
—Ben Burrows, The Athletic, 9 Aug. 2024
Was there a clean break between writing Body Building and this record?
—Liam Hess, Vogue, 25 Oct. 2024
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Volker Perthes, Foreign Affairs, 24 Jan. 2025
Since its founding as a republic, Turkey had been charting a future based on a clean break with its Ottoman past, a time when Constantinople ruled Syria, but Erdogan openly embraced that past as a means to establish Turkey as a major power.
—Alia Malek, New York Times, 17 Jan. 2025
The decision to elevate Mr. Driscoll and Mr. Kissane to the seventh floor of bureau headquarters where senior leadership sits signals that the Trump administration wanted a clean break after lengthy F.B.I. investigations that ensnared the president.
—Adam Goldman, New York Times, 20 Jan. 2025
Her approach is a clean break from the 19th-century tradition of American landscape art, in which de facto propagandists like Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Cole depicted land as radiant and virginal, the birthright of any colonial buccaneer drunk on Manifest Destiny.
—Jeremy Lybarger, ARTnews.com, 6 Jan. 2025
Scott’s Tom Ripley was a clean break from that of Matt Damon; instead of a petulant pretty boy seized by envy and lust, this Ripley was older (Scott is in his late forties) and scarier, a lonesome manipulator with a murderous gleam in his eye.
—Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 9 Dec. 2024
Dawn Richard + Spencer Zahn / Zebulon / Dec. 2
Richard deserves a clean break from any Diddy news in her life.
—Mikael Wood, Los Angeles Times, 24 Nov. 2024
This is not a clean break for the Tsitsipas family.
—Ben Burrows, The Athletic, 9 Aug. 2024
Was there a clean break between writing Body Building and this record?
—Liam Hess, Vogue, 25 Oct. 2024
Dictionary Entries Near clean break
Cite this Entry
“Clean break.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clean%20break. Accessed 21 Feb. 2025.
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