Break even or breakeven?
break even is a verb meaning “To neither gain nor lose a quantity of something, (especially) money”; breakeven is a noun meaning “Alternative spelling of break-even”. break even is written as two words and breakeven as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between break even and breakeven?
| break even | breakeven | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun, adjective | noun, adjective |
| Meaning | To neither gain nor lose a quantity of something, (especially) money To stay the same; to neither advance nor regress The level of revenues sufficient to cover costs | Alternative spelling of break-even |
| Example | After an entire night playing poker, he nearly broke even | none recorded |
| Forms | none | breakevens |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | not recorded |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | about once in every 4 million words |
Sources: break even and breakeven in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of break even and breakeven
break even
- 1
To neither gain nor lose a quantity of something, (especially) money
After an entire night playing poker, he nearly broke even
- 2
The level of revenues sufficient to cover costs
We'll never reach break-even if our variable costs are higher than our selling price
- 3
that is characterized by the level of revenues just sufficient to cover costs
The Altair 8800 computer was a break-even sale for MITS
- 4
To stay the same; to neither advance nor regress
It's a lot of work just to break even and keep the weeds down
breakeven
- 1
Alternative spelling of break-even
- 2
Alternative spelling of break-even
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, break even or breakeven?
break even is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; breakeven about once in every 4 million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search break even vs breakeven?
“break even vs breakeven” is searched about 10 times a month on Bing (Google reports it together with close variants, so it has no figure of its own) in the United States.
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.