bra
/bɹɑː/noun
bra is spelled B-R-A: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 7.1 times per million words in written English, the 8,918th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, bra means “An item of clothing, usually underwear worn to support the breasts” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of bra is bras.
How many letters and syllables are in bra?
| Letters | 3: B-R-A |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 7.1 times per million words; the 8,918th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is bra?
Bra appears 7.1 times per million words in written English, the 8,918th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce bra?
- /bɹɑː/
- [bɹɐ̞]
- /bɹæ/
Bra has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-bra.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with bra
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with bra?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as bra.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: bar, arb.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of bra
- bras plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does bra mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An item of clothing, usually underwear worn to support the breasts.
- 2
One of the two vectors in the standard notation for describing quantum states in quantum mechanics, the row vector; the other (column) vector being its complex conjugate, the ket.
- 3
slangAlternative form of bro; friend, mate
Take it easy, bra!
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Bra in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | soutien-gorge, soutif, brassière |
| German | Büstenhalter, BH, Busenhalter , Bra |
| Portuguese | sutiã |
| Spanish | ajustador, brasier, corpiño, sostén, soutien, sujetador |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does bra come from?
Clipping of brassiere, borrowed from French brassière, from Old French braciere (originally a lining inside armor to protect the arm, but later a garment), from Old French brace (“arm”), from Latin bracchia, plural of Latin bracchium (“forearm”), from Ancient Greek βραχίων (brakhíōn, “forearm”), from Proto-Hellenic *brəkʰús (“short”) (because the forearm is shorter than the upper arm), inherited from Proto-Indo-European *mréǵʰus.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).