Idiom
break the mold
Meaning
To depart from a traditional pattern; to defy convention.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“She really broke the mold with her unique painting style.”
“He breaks the mold by wearing a bright suit to every serious business meeting.”
“You break the mold when you choose a career that your family does not expect.”
“The new manager decided to break the mold by letting employees choose their own working hours.”
“The tech company hopes to break the mold by designing a smartphone that users can easily repair themselves at home.”
“Instead of following the usual plot, the director breaks the mold by letting the audience choose the ending of the movie.”
“By rejecting the rigid traditions of his predecessors, the young architect managed to break the mold and create a truly revolutionary design.”
Examples
simple
“She really broke the mold with her unique painting style.”
“He breaks the mold by wearing a bright suit to every serious business meeting.”
“You break the mold when you choose a career that your family does not expect.”
contextual
“The new manager decided to break the mold by letting employees choose their own working hours.”
“The tech company hopes to break the mold by designing a smartphone that users can easily repair themselves at home.”
“Instead of following the usual plot, the director breaks the mold by letting the audience choose the ending of the movie.”
complex
“By rejecting the rigid traditions of his predecessors, the young architect managed to break the mold and create a truly revolutionary design.”
Origin
From the practice of casting multiple identical replicas from a single hollow form. The image is of a physical cast used to shape fluid materials into solid objects; by destroying the vessel after the initial casting, one ensures that no further copies can be produced. The phrase describes the deliberate prevention of repetition.
Key words
Related idioms
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