break bad

• IPA^(key): /bɹeɪk bæd/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /bɹæɪ̯k bæːd/

break bad (third-person singular simple present breaks bad, present participle breaking bad, simple past broke bad, past participle broken bad)

1. (colloquial, of an event or of one's fortunes) To go wrong; to go downhill. [from 1908]
   • 1908, Rex Beach, The barrier, page 212:

     "A woman came out from the East—Vermont, it was—and school-teaching was her line of business, only she hadn't been raised to it, and this was her first clatter at the game; but things had broke bad for her people, and ended in her pulling stakes and coming West all alone.

   • 1913, William MacLeod Raine, Crooked trials and straight‎, page 134:

     Half the bad men are only coltish cowpunchers gone wrong through rotten whiskey and luck breaking bad for them.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:break bad.
2. (colloquial, especially Southern US and Midwestern US, of a person) To go bad; to turn toward immorality or crime.

   Synonyms: go bad, go astray

   Antonym: turn over a new leaf

   • 2005, Will D. Campbell, The Glad River, →ISBN, page 18:

     But somehow he broke bad when he was just a yearling boy, started running around at night with a bad crowd, drinking beer and wine, and fighting and getting in all kinds of trouble and wouldn't go to school.

   • 2008, “Pilot”, in Breaking Bad, spoken by Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul):

     Nah, come on, man! Some straight like you, giant stick up his ass, all of a sudden at age, what, sixty, he's just gonna break bad?

   • 2012, John Grisham, The Racketeer, →ISBN:

     My nephew was breaking bad, getting deeper into the crack trade, […]

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:break bad.

• bad break (see break)