Braided

How to spell braided

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce braided

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does braided mean?

1. adjectiveMade by interweaving three or more strands into a single plaited form.
2. verbInterwove three or more strands of hair, rope, or fabric into a single plait.

Braided in a sentence

• adjective

  She wore a braided leather belt with her jeans.

• verb

  She braided her daughter's hair before the school photograph.

• adjective

  The rug had a thick braided border along each edge.

• verb

  The sailors braided the loose ropes into a sturdy line.

Where does braided come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense and past participle of the verb 'braid', which descends from the Old English verb 'bregdan', meaning 'to move quickly, to weave, or to plait'. In its earliest uses the root carried a broad sense of sudden movement and intertwining, and you can still hear that older flavour in the related word 'upbraid', literally 'to bring up against someone'. Over the centuries the weaving sense narrowed to the familiar one of interlacing three or more strands of hair, rope, or fabric into a single plait. The word is solidly Germanic and shares ancestry with similar weaving words across the northern European languages. Because the base verb ends in a single consonant after a long vowel sound, the past tense simply adds '-ed' without doubling, giving the clean spelling 'braided'.

How the word is built

• braid (to weave or plait)
• -ed (past tense / adjectival suffix)