Brief

/[bʁiːf]/ noun

Letters

5 characters

Frequency Rank

#1,657

in German word usage

Misspellings

7

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

Brief is aGermannoun. It means: geschriebene, verschlossene Mitteilung, die (meist gegen Bezahlung) per Post oder Boten verschickt wird Pronounced [bʁiːf]. It ranks #1,657 in German word frequency. Often confused with bring and Brite.

Key facts for Brief
PropertyValue
HeadwordBrief
LanguageGerman
Part of speechNoun
IPA[bʁiːf]
Letters5
Frequency rank#1,657
Misspellings tracked7
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of Brief in German word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The German entry for Brief is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [bʁiːf]. Corpus data places it at rank #1,657 in overall German word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "geschriebene, verschlossene Mitteilung, die (meist gegen Bezahlung) per Post oder Boten verschickt wird".

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for Brief, with forms such as "bbrief", "biref", and "breif". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "bring", "Brite", "brise", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct German form is Brief, spelled B-R-I-E-F, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    geschriebene, verschlossene Mitteilung, die (meist gegen Bezahlung) per Post oder Boten verschickt wird

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: bbrief,biref,breif,brieff,brife,brrief,rbief

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for Brief

Misspelling Variants of "Brief"

bbrief6biref5breif5brieff6brife5brrief6rbief5
Misspelling Variants of "Brief"

Frequency rank: #1,657 in German

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "Brief"?
"Brief" is spelled B-R-I-E-F. The IPA pronunciation is [bʁiːf].
What does "Brief" mean?
As a noun, "Brief" means: geschriebene, verschlossene Mitteilung, die (meist gegen Bezahlung) per Post oder Boten verschickt wird
What words are commonly confused with "Brief"?
"Brief" is commonly confused with "bring", "Brite", "brise". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "Brief"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "Brief" is [bʁiːf]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "Brief" come from?
"Brief" is a German word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby German words

Other entries that begin with the letter B in our German index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.