them's the breaks
English
Alternative forms
- those are the breaks, them’s da breaks
Etymology
From break in the sense “a stroke of luck” (compare tough break, lucky break).
Pronunciation
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Phrase
- (colloquial, idiomatic, originally US) That is the way things happen; that's life.
- Synonyms: that's the way the cookie crumbles; see also Thesaurus:that's life
- 2022 July 7, Heather Stewart, quoting Boris Johnson, “Boris Johnson’s resignation speech: what he said, and what he meant”, in The Guardian[1]:
- And I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world. But them’s the breaks.
Further reading
- Eric Partridge (2005) “them's the breaks”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume 2 (J–Z), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1948.
- “break n.1”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present