Break the ice

How it is used

Common in meetings, workshops, interviews, and networking events. Often refers to a light question, joke, or brief personal introduction.

Example sentences

1. To break the ice at the kickoff meeting, Maya asked everyone to share one customer complaint they had solved creatively.

   Here, break the ice means making the group feel less formal and encouraging people to participate early in the meeting.

2. He opened with a short story about getting lost on the way to the conference center, which helped break the ice with the new partners.

   In this example, break the ice shows how a light personal remark can reduce distance and make first contact easier.

Common collocations

• break the ice at a meeting
• break the ice with new clients
• an ice-breaking question

Related terms

• touch baseTo contact someone briefly to check how things are going or to share a quick update, usually by phone, chat or a short meeting.
• on the same pageHaving the same understanding of a situation, plan or goal as the other people involved.

More terms: Office Idioms and Phrases

• heads-up
• keep me posted
• ballpark figure
• bandwidth
• circle back
• low-hanging fruit
• get the ball rolling
• back to the drawing board
• drop the ball
• on my radar
• up to speed
• on board