break it to
verb1
Idiomatic To deliver unfortunate or upsetting news to someone.
- Look, I hate to break it to you, but Tim doesn't want anything to do with you anymore.
- Although I don't doubt that he'd have put much more faith in a local wizard if one had been available, he let us take the boy into the hospital tent and do what we could for him. It wasn't much, and I told my assistant to break it to poor old Calico that he must be prepared for the worst.1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC:
1 more example
- [Spoken by a shopkeeper] Hmmm... Hate to break this to you, but you don't have enough money.1995, HAL Laboratory, EarthBound, Nintendo, Super Nintendo Entertainment System: