jailbreak

1 of 2

noun

jail·​break ˈjāl-ˌbrāk 

: a forcible escape from jail

jailbreak

2 of 2

verb

jailbroke ˈjāl-ˌbrōk  ; jailbreaking; jailbreaks

transitive verb

: to remove built-in limitations from (an electronic device, such as a cell phone)

I'm not trying to be overly snarky here, but for … in-house app distribution, I see no need or advantage to jailbreaking an iOS device.

—John Welch

Last week we learned you can jailbreak every current model of Kindle.

—Thorin Klosowski

Apple makes it nearly impossible for the average user to download apps from anywhere else unless you jailbreak your phone.

—Peter Wells

Examples of jailbreak in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Following a white-knuckle jailbreak, Cass made his way home to the planet Ferrix in time for his mother’s funeral, and managed to elude capture by the many factions hunting him. —Matt Webb Mitovich, TVLine, 25 June 2024

And they can be subverted with prompt injections or jailbreaks that throw them off their safety guardrails. —Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, 11 June 2024

Verb

The developers are trying to tamp down users’ ability to jailbreak their systems and put those systems to nefarious work, such as that highlighted by Shah, Pour and their colleagues. —Chris Stokel-Walker, Scientific American, 6 Dec. 2023

After installation, the malware would remotely jailbreak the device using a publicly available jailbreak to escalate its system access. —Lily Hay Newman, Wired, 21 Apr. 2021

Word History

First Known Use

Noun

1910, in the meaning defined above

Verb

2007, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

jailbreak

noun

jail·​break -ˌbrāk 

: an escape from jail by use of force