Bronze

How to spell bronze

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce bronze

What does bronze mean?

1. nounA hard alloy of copper and tin, or a reddish-brown medal awarded for third place.
2. verbTo give something a brown metallic colour, or to make skin tan in the sun.

Bronze in a sentence

• noun

  The statue in the square was cast in solid bronze.

• verb

  A week on the coast can bronze even the palest skin.

• noun

  She finished third and took home the bronze at the championships.

• verb

  Craftsmen often bronze steel fittings to imitate antique metal.

Where does bronze come from?

Language of origin: Italian

Bronze came into English in the early 1700s from the French bronze, which the French had taken from the Italian bronzo, the standard word for the copper-and-tin alloy. The deeper origin of bronzo is genuinely debated: one strong theory traces it to the Latin phrase aes Brundisii, meaning 'metal of Brundisium', the southern Italian port (modern Brindisi) famous in antiquity for its bronze mirrors and wares. A rival theory connects it to the Persian birinj or biring, meaning 'copper', possibly carried west through trade. Whatever the source, the metal itself, an alloy of copper and tin, is far older than the word, having given its name to the entire Bronze Age. The spelling keeps the French and Italian -z- spelling rather than an English -s-, which is the small trap that catches writers who expect 'bronse'.

How the word is built

• bronze (single root; no separable prefix or suffix), from Italian bronzo