Eyebrow
nounThe arch of hair growing on the bony ridge above each eye.
How to spell eyebrow
7 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce eyebrow
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does eyebrow mean?
- nounThe arch of hair growing on the bony ridge above each eye.
Eyebrow in a sentence
-
She raised one eyebrow when the bill arrived.
-
The makeup artist trimmed and shaped each eyebrow before the photo shoot.
Where does eyebrow come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a native English compound built from two very old Anglo-Saxon words. The first element comes from the Old English eage, meaning 'eye', and the second from the Old English bru, which meant the ridge of the forehead or the arch of hair growing on it. Both halves have close cousins across the Germanic languages, and the same brow element survives in 'highbrow' and 'lowbrow'. The two words were joined into a single compound only in the later medieval period, when 'eye brow' came to name specifically the line of hair above each eye rather than the brow ridge itself. The spelling preserves the historic 'eye' fully, which is why writers sometimes pause over the silent run of letters in that first syllable.
How the word is built
- eye (the organ of sight)
- brow (the arch of forehead above the eye)
Fix your spelling for good.
Spelling Garden finds the words you personally get wrong, plants them in a garden, and brings each one back just before you would have forgotten it.
Just five minutes a day is all it takes to fix your spelling.