Broad
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
broad¹
- /bɹɔːd/ UK
- /bɹoːd/ Australia, British, New Zealand, Southern, Standard
- /bɹɔd/ US
- /bɹɑd/ Atlantic Canada, US, cot caught merger
- /bɹɒd/ Canada
- /bɾɔd/ Scotland
- /bɾɔːd/ Wales
- /brɔɖ/ South Asia
- /broɖ/ South Asia
Rhymes with -ɔːd
Where it comes from
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *bʰer-der.?
Proto-Germanic *braidaz
Proto-West Germanic *braid
Old English brād
Middle English brod
English broad
From Middle English brood, brode, from Old English brād (“broad, flat, open, extended, spacious, wide, ample, copious”), from Proto-West Germanic *braid, from Proto-Germanic *braidaz (“broad, wide”), of uncertain origin.
Cognates
Cognate with Yola brode (“broad”), North Frisian bread, breeđ, briad, briid, briidj (“wide”), Saterland Frisian and West Frisian breed (“broad, wide”), Bavarian brad, broad (“broad, wide”), Central Franconian and Luxembourgish breet (“broad, wide”), Dutch breed (“broad, wide”), German breit (“broad, wide”), Vilamovian braat (“broad, wide”), Yiddish ברייט (breyt, “broad, wide”), Danish and Swedish bred (“broad, wide”), Faroese and Icelandic breiður (“broad, wide”), Norwegian Bokmål bred, brei (“broad, wide”), Norwegian Nynorsk brei, breid (“broad, wide”), Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐌰𐌹𐌸𐍃 (braiþs, “broad, wide”).
adjective broader · broadest
- Wide in extent or scope. three feet broad
- Extended, in the sense of diffused; open; clear; full. broad and open day
- Having a large measure of any thing or quality; unlimited; unrestrained. a broad mixture of falsehood
- Comprehensive; liberal; enlarged. The words in the Constitution are broad enough to include the case.
- Plain; evident. a broad hint
- General rather than specific. to be in broad agreement
- Unsubtle; obvious. Lee: I wrote that line for you. Maeve: A bit broad, if you ask me.
- Free; unrestrained; unconfined. as broad and general as the casing air
- Gross; coarse; indelicate. a broad compliment; a broad joke; broad humour
- Strongly regional. She still has a broad Scottish accent, despite moving to California 20 years ago.
- Velarized, i.e. not palatalized.
noun broads
- A shallow lake, one of a number of bodies of water in eastern Norfolk and Suffolk.
- A lathe tool for turning down the insides and bottoms of cylinders.
- A British gold coin worth 20 shillings, issued by the Commonwealth of England in 1656.
- A kind of floodlight. […] fresnel spotlights, old-type broads, sky-pans, cone-lights, etc.
- A playing card. I reckon as old Sol couldn't ha' lived without a pack of broads. If he couldn't find anybody to play with him, he'd play alone, […]
broad²
Where it comes from
Early 20th century, apparent phono-semantic matching of German Braut (“bride”, also “girlfriend”, and more generally “broad, chick”).
noun broads
- A prostitute, a woman of loose morals. “Now we go up Bowery Street look at broads. Me pay.”
- A woman or girl. They always hook you in the end, them broads. This whole trouble is on account of a dame reads a book.
Broad³
proper noun Broads
- A surname.
