different between rough vs broken

English

Alternative forms

• ruff (colloquial)

Etymology

From Middle English rough, rogh, ro?e, row, rou, ru, ru?, ruh, from Old English r?g, r?h, from Proto-Germanic *r?haz. Cognate with Scots ruch, rouch (“rough”), Saterland Frisian ruuch, rouch (“rough”), West Frisian rûch (“rough”), Low German ruuch (“rough”), Dutch ruig (“rough”), German rau(h) (“rough”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /??f/
• Rhymes: -?f
• Homophone: ruff

Adjective

rough (comparative rougher, superlative roughest)

1. Not smooth; uneven.
   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room Chapter 1

     The rock was one of those tremendously solid brown, or rather black, rocks which emerge from the sand like something primitive. Rough with crinkled limpet shells and sparsely strewn with locks of dry seaweed, a small boy has to stretch his legs far apart, and indeed to feel rather heroic, before he gets to the top.

2. Approximate; hasty or careless; not finished.

3. Turbulent.
   • 1927-29, M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated 1940 by Mahadev Desai, Part I, Chapter xii:

     With my mother's permission and blessings, I set off exultantly for Bombay, leaving my wife with a baby of a few months. But on arrival there, friends told my brother that the Indian Ocean was rough in June and July, and as this was my first voyage, I should not be allowed to sail until November.

4. Difficult; trying.

5. Crude; unrefined

6. Violent; not careful or subtle

7. Loud and hoarse; offensive to the ear; harsh; grating.

   • But most by Numbers judge a Poet's song,
     And smooth or rough, with them

8. Not polished; uncut; said of a gem.

9. Harsh-tasting.

10. (chiefly Britain, colloquial, slang) Somewhat ill; sick
11. (chiefly Britain, colloquial, slang) Unwell due to alcohol; hungover

Antonyms

• smooth

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

rough (plural roughs)

1. The unmowed part of a golf course.
2. A rude fellow; a coarse bully; a rowdy.
3. (cricket) A scuffed and roughened area of the pitch, where the bowler's feet fall, used as a target by spin bowlers because of its unpredictable bounce.
4. The raw material from which faceted or cabochon gems are created.
5. A quick sketch, similar to a thumbnail but larger and more detailed, used for artistic brainstorming.
6. (obsolete) Boisterous weather.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Fletcher to this entry?)

7. A piece inserted in a horseshoe to keep the animal from slipping.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

rough (third-person singular simple present roughs, present participle roughing, simple past and past participle roughed)

1. To create in an approximate form.

2. (ice hockey) To commit the offense of roughing, i.e. to punch another player.
3. To render rough; to roughen.
4. To break in (a horse, etc.), especially for military purposes.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Crabb to this entry?)

5. To endure primitive conditions.
6. (transitive) To roughen a horse's shoes to keep the animal from slipping.

Derived terms

Translations

Adverb

rough (comparative more rough, superlative most rough)

1. In a rough manner; rudely; roughly.

Derived terms

• sleep rough

English

Etymology

From Middle English broken, from Old English brocen, ?ebrocen, from Proto-Germanic *brukanaz, past participle of Proto-Germanic *brekan? (“to break”). Cognate with Dutch gebroken (“broken”), German Low German broken (“broken”), German gebrochen (“broken”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: br?k'?n, IPA^(key): /?b???k?n/
• Rhymes: -??k?n

Verb

broken

1. past participle of break

Adjective

broken (comparative more broken, superlative most broken)

1. Fragmented, in separate pieces.
   1. (of a bone or body part) Fractured; having the bone in pieces.

   2. (of skin) Split or ruptured.

   3. (of a line) Dashed, made up of short lines with small gaps between each one and the next.
   4. (of sleep) Interrupted; not continuous.
      • 1906, Jack London, White Fang:

        Then the circle would lie down again, and here and there a wolf would resume its broken nap.

   5. (meteorology, of the sky) Five-eighths to seven-eighths obscured by clouds; incompletely covered by clouds.

   6. (of a melody) having periods of silence scattered throughout; not regularly continuous.
2. (of a promise, etc) Breached; violated; not kept.

3. Non-functional; not functioning properly.
   1. (of an electronic connection) Disconnected, no longer open or carrying traffic.
   2. (software, informal) Badly designed or implemented.

   4. (of language) Grammatically non-standard, especially as a result of being produced by a non-native speaker.
   5. (colloquial, US, of a situation) Not having gone in the way intended; saddening.

4. (of a person) Completely defeated and dispirited; shattered; destroyed.

5. Having no money; bankrupt, broke.

   (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

6. (of land) Uneven.
7. (sports and gaming, of a tactic or option) Overpowered; overly powerful; too powerful.

Usage notes

• Nouns to which "broken" is often applied: glass, vase, cup, mirror, window, bone, wing, leg, arm, hand, foot, heart, egg, tool, sword, column, road, bridge, stick, device, machine, camera, TV, car, computer, promise, vow, law, trust, dream, relationship, friendship, love, family, marriage, bond, tie, silence, ground, land, circle, image, language, spirit, soul.

Synonyms

• (fragmented—bone, objects et al): burst, split; see also Thesaurus:broken
• (fragmented—line, sleep et al): intermittent, spasmodic; see also Thesaurus:discontinuous
• (not kept): violated
• (non-functional): borked, malfunctioning; see also Thesaurus:out of order
• (completely defeated): rekt
• (having no money): destitute, skint; see also Thesaurus:impoverished
• (uneven land):
• (overpowered): OP, unbalanced

Hyponyms

• heartbroken
• housebroken
• jailbroken

Derived terms

• brokenhearted, broken-hearted
• Broken Hill
• brokenly
• brokenness
• unbroken

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

• broken at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Borken, bonker, borken