Bridesmaid

How to spell bridesmaid

10 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bridesmaid

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bridesmaid mean?

1. nounA girl or woman who attends the bride at a wedding.

Bridesmaid in a sentence

• Each bridesmaid wore a pale blue dress to match the theme.

• She asked her younger sister to be her chief bridesmaid.

Where does bridesmaid come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English compound, built from two very old Anglo-Saxon words. The first part, 'bride', comes from the Old English 'bryd', meaning a woman about to be married or newly wed, a word with cousins across the Germanic languages. The second part, 'maid', is a shortening of the Old English 'mægden', meaning a young unmarried woman or female servant, the same root that gives us 'maiden'. An earlier form, 'bridemaid', existed without the linking 's', but the connecting 's' (echoing forms like 'bridesman' and 'bridegroom') settled into the standard spelling by the 1700s. That hidden 's' in the middle is the spelling trap, since the word sounds almost the same whether or not you pronounce it clearly.

How the word is built

• bride (woman being married, from Old English bryd)
• -s- (linking/possessive s)
• maid (unmarried woman or attendant, from Old English mægden shortened)