big break

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big break (plural big breaks)

1. (entertainment, idiomatic) A breakthrough, especially the first big hit of a previously unknown performer or performers in the entertainment industry.
   • 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 93:

     The East London Line gained a connection to the Jubilee Line Extension when a new station was added at Canada Water in 1999, but its big break came in 2010, when it was incorporated into the London Overground, a network that rehabilitates some dowdy and obscure suburban lines (most particularly the old North London Railway) to create an orbital railway for the capital.

• “big break”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.