Breadth

How to spell breadth

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce breadth

What does breadth mean?

1. nounThe distance or measurement from one side of something to the other.
2. nounThe wide range or extent of something, such as knowledge, experience, or coverage.

Breadth in a sentence

• The carpenter measured the breadth of the doorway before fitting the frame.

• The candidate impressed the panel with the breadth of her professional experience.

• The river widens until its breadth reaches almost a kilometre near the estuary.

• The course is praised for its breadth, covering everything from history to economics.

Where does breadth come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Breadth comes from the native Old English stock of English, built on the adjective brād, meaning 'wide' or 'broad'. The earliest form of the noun was brǣdu, simply 'width', and for centuries English speakers used that smoother form. The modern spelling with its awkward 'dth' cluster emerged in the Middle English period under the pull of length, which already ended in -th; people reshaped the width word to rhyme with it, giving us breadth alongside length. This is why the spelling preserves the 'a' of broad even though the vowel is now pronounced as a short 'e', a quiet reminder that breadth is literally the measure of how broad something is. The -th suffix is the same one that turns warm into warmth and deep into depth, marking an abstract quality or dimension.

How the word is built

• broad (root, from Old English brād: wide)
• -th (noun-forming suffix denoting a quality or measurement)