Outbreak

//ˈaʊtbɹeɪk// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An eruption; the sudden appearance of a rash, disease, etc.

    "Any epidemic outbreak causes understandable panic."

  2. 2
    a sudden violent spontaneous occurrence (usually of some undesirable condition) wordnet
  3. 3
    A sudden increase.

    "There has been an outbreak of vandalism at the school."

  4. 4
    An outburst or sudden eruption, especially of violence and mischief. figuratively

    "There has been an outbreak of broken windows in the street."

  5. 5
    Synonym of breakout (“escape from prison”).
Verb
  1. 1
    To burst out or break forth. intransitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
outburstaalphaattackbeginningbelch

Example

More examples

"A chain of events led to the outbreak of the war."

Etymology

From Middle English outbreken, oute-breken, from Old English ūtābrecan (“to break out”), equivalent to out- + break. Cognate with Saterland Frisian uutbreeke (“to break out; burst out”), West Frisian útbrekke (“to break out”), Dutch uitbreken (“to break out, burst out”), German ausbrechen (“to break out, erupt”).

Related phrases

sun outagebreak forthburst outjail leavingput togetherspread sicknesswidespread sickness

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.