Break up or breakup?
break up is a verb meaning “To break or separate into pieces”; breakup is a noun meaning “The act of breaking up; disintegration or division”. Use break up as a verb and breakup as a noun. break up is written as two words and breakup as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between break up and breakup?
| break up | breakup | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | noun |
| Meaning | To break or separate into pieces To break or separate into pieces; to disintegrate or come apart | The act of breaking up; disintegration or division The termination of a friendship or a romantic relationship |
| Example | Break up the cheese and put it in the salad | none recorded |
| Forms | none | breakups |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /ˈbɹeɪk.ʌp/ |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | 4.4 times per million words |
Sources: break up and breakup 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 up and breakup
break up
- 1
To break or separate into pieces
Break up the cheese and put it in the salad
- 2
Alternative form of breakup
- 3
Alternative spelling of breakup
- 4
To break or separate into pieces; to disintegrate or come apart
It broke up when it hit the ground
- 5
To upset greatly; to cause great emotional disturbance or unhappiness in
- 6
To end a (usually romantic or sexual) relationship
She broke up with her boyfriend last week
- 7
To end a (usually romantic or sexual) relationship with each other
Jane and Stephen broke up
- 8
To dissolve; to part
The meeting finally broke up after a three-hour discussion
breakup
- 1
The act of breaking up; disintegration or division
- 2
The termination of a friendship or a romantic relationship
- 3
A loss of emotional control; a breakdown
- 4
CanadaThe season during which winter ice covering bodies of water disintegrates; more generally, spring
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 up or breakup?
break up is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; breakup 4.4 times per 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 up vs breakup?
“break up vs breakup” is searched about 10 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“breakup vs break up”, “break up or breakup”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.