break loose
verbEtymology From Middle English breken los, breken lous, breken lowse, equivalent to break + loose.
1
To escape; to free oneself.
- They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups.1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 9:
- On the Lincolnshire side of the Humber, the Pier Station at New Holland was put out of action when the ferry boat plying to and from Hull broke loose from its moorings.1953 May, “British Railways and the January Floods”, in Railway Magazine, page 301:
- Related terms
- all hell breaks loose