Bride

How to spell bride

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bride

What does bride mean?

1. nounA woman on her wedding day or just before and after it.

Bride in a sentence

• The bride wore a long ivory gown for the ceremony.

• Every guest stood as the bride walked down the aisle.

Where does bride come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word comes from Old English bryd, meaning a betrothed or newly married woman, and it traces back to a common Germanic root that also gave Dutch bruid and German Braut. The deeper origin is uncertain, though some scholars connect it to an ancient root linked to cooking or daughter-in-law duties, so its earliest literal sense is genuinely debated. The familiar compounds 'bridegroom' and 'bridal' both grew from the same source; 'bridal' was originally 'bride-ale', the wedding feast at which ale was served. The spelling settled with a single, silent final 'e' that signals the long 'i' sound, a pattern that has stayed remarkably stable for over a thousand years. Because it is an old native word rather than a borrowing, it has avoided the awkward foreign letter clusters that trip people up elsewhere.

How the word is built

• bride (from Old English bryd: a woman about to be married, no separable affixes)