Etymology

broker than the Ten Commandments

Today it means: Extremely impoverished. Full definition →

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The story

A pun on the sense of broke 'without money' and broken, with potential reference both to Moses' destruction ('breaking') of the tablets on Mount Sinai (Exodus 32:19) and sinners' violation ('breaking') of the Ten Commandments in daily life.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.