break someone's back

break someone's back (third-person singular simple present breaks someone's back, present participle breaking someone's back, simple past broke someone's back, past participle broken someone's back)

1. (idiomatic) Alternative form of break the back of (overburden).

   Would it break your back to pay me a compliment once in a while?

   • 2003, Jack White, “Black Math”, in Elephant, performed by The White Stripes:

     My books are sitting at the top of the stack now
     The longer words are really breaking my back now.

2. (idiomatic) Synonym of blow someone's back out.
   • 2004 March 15, Mark Passy, Kirk Robinson, Jennifer Graziano, Frankee, Eamon, “F.U.R.B. (Fuck You Right Back)” (track 11), in The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, performed by Frankee:

     Fuck all those nights I moaned real loud / Fuck it, I faked it, aren't you proud? / Fuck all those nights you thought you broke my back / Well, guess what yo, your sex was wack

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see break,‎ back.

• back-breaking
• break one's back

• John Camden Hotten (1873), The Slang Dictionary