Brief

How to spell brief

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce brief

What does brief mean?

1. adjectiveLasting only a short time, or expressed in few words.
2. nounA set of instructions or a summary document outlining a task or a legal case.
3. verbTo give someone the essential information they need beforehand.

Brief in a sentence

• adjective

  The meeting was brief, lasting barely ten minutes.

• noun

  The design team received a detailed brief from the client.

• verb

  The manager will brief the staff about the new safety rules.

• adjective

  She gave a brief summary of the quarterly results.

• noun

  The barrister read through the brief before the hearing.

• verb

  Officers met early to brief the team on the day's operation.

Where does brief come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin adjective brevis, which literally meant 'short' in either time or length. It passed into Old French as bref, carrying the same sense of 'short', and English adopted it during the 1300s. Early on it had a strong written-document meaning too, because a brevis was a short official letter or summary, and that line gave us the legal 'brief' and the verb 'to brief' someone with a concise account. The very same brevis root survives in 'abbreviate' (to shorten), 'abridge', and 'brevity', and the musical 'breve' as well. Because the word kept its tidy four-letter Latin shape, the spelling is governed by the familiar 'i before e except after c' pattern, which is the main thing a writer needs to recall.

How the word is built

• brief (from Latin brevis: short)