Rupture

How to spell rupture

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce rupture

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rupture mean?

1. nounAn instance of something breaking, bursting, or tearing apart, including a hernia in medical use.
2. verbTo break, burst, or tear apart, often suddenly and under pressure.

Rupture in a sentence

• noun

  The engineers traced the leak to a rupture in the main pipe.

• verb

  Too much pressure can rupture the weld along the seam.

• noun

  The surgeon explained that the rupture would need immediate repair.

• verb

  A heavy fall could rupture the small intestine.

Where does rupture come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb rumpere, which meant 'to break, burst, or tear apart'. Its past participle was ruptus, 'broken', and from that came the noun ruptura, describing a breaking or a fracture. English picked the word up in the late 1300s, partly through medical Latin, where it was used for hernias and for the tearing of bodily tissue. The same Latin root quietly sits inside a whole family of English words, including interrupt (to break in), corrupt (to break thoroughly), erupt (to break out), and abrupt (broken off), so the spelled cluster 'rupt' is the steady, reliable part. The slightly tricky element for writers is the ending: it is the unstressed '-ture' that closes the word, not '-cher', and remembering the shared 'rupt' of its relatives keeps the spelling on track.

How the word is built

• rupt (from Latin ruptus, 'broken')
• -ure (noun suffix forming an act or result)