Brave
adjectiveShowing courage and a readiness to face danger, pain, or difficulty.
How to spell brave
5 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce brave
What does brave mean?
- adjectiveShowing courage and a readiness to face danger, pain, or difficulty.
- verbTo face and endure something dangerous or unpleasant with courage.
Brave in a sentence
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adjective
The brave firefighter carried two children out of the smoke.
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verb
Commuters had to brave the freezing rain to reach the station.
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adjective
It takes a brave person to admit a mistake in front of colleagues.
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verb
Thousands brave the long queues every year to see the exhibition.
Where does brave come from?
Language of origin: French
The word came into English in the late 1500s from the French brave, meaning 'bold' or 'splendid', which the French had taken from the Italian bravo. The Italian bravo carried a double life: it could mean 'fine' or 'courageous', but it also meant 'wild' or 'fierce', and is thought to descend from the Latin barbarus, 'foreign, savage' (the same root behind 'barbarian'), perhaps mingled with pravus, 'crooked or bad'. So a word that today praises courage once leaned toward wildness and disorder, which is a neat reminder of how positive a spin English gave it. The cheering shout 'bravo' shares this exact Italian ancestry. The spelling stays pleasingly simple, the trap being only the silent final -e that the French ending left behind.
How the word is built
- brave (whole word from French brave: bold, courageous); no separable prefix or suffix
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