Breakeven is the point where a business is not making money and not losing money — money coming in exactly equals money going out. Below that point you lose; above it you start to profit. Imagine a coffee shop: rent, wages and beans cost the same each month whether you sell five cups or five hundred. There is a number of cups where the money from sales finally covers all of it. That number is breakeven. Anything after it is profit. The word is used as a noun ('We reached breakeven in the second year') and very often before another noun ('the breakeven point', 'breakeven analysis', 'a breakeven price'). Spelling moves around: you will see breakeven, break-even, and break even, and the hyphen form is the most common when it sits before a noun — 'the break-even point'. As two separate words it is a verb: 'We hope to break even this year', meaning to end up neither up nor down. It is a business and accounting word, so it belongs in reports, meetings and business classes rather than daily chat. But people do borrow it more loosely: after a night of card games you might say 'I broke even', meaning you went home with the money you came with.