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brand-new

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

9 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "brand-new", 9-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "brand-new" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "brand-new" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

brand new is anEnglishadj. It means: Utterly new, as new as possible. Pronounced /ˈbɹænd ˌn(j)uː/.

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Key facts for brand new
PropertyValue
Headwordbrand new
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdj
IPA/ˈbɹænd ˌn(j)uː/
Letters9
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

brand new is not present in the top-100,000 ranked English corpus, typical for technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary.

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for brand new is 9 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbɹænd ˌn(j)uː/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No misspelling variants are generated for brand new in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: From brand (“firebrand”) + new, implying something that is newly forged (first citation 1570; compare fire-new (“fresh from the fire, brand-new”)). Alternatively, and less likely from brand as in a branding iron (i.e. newly-branded). The first element of th… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is brand new, spelled B-R-A-N-D- -N-E-W, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Utterly new, as new as possible.
  2. 2
    Acting in a way unusual for oneself.

Etymology

From brand (“firebrand”) + new, implying something that is newly forged (first citation 1570; compare fire-new (“fresh from the fire, brand-new”)). Alternatively, and less likely from brand as in a branding iron (i.e. newly-branded). The first element of the variant bran new, with the post nasal stop deletion common to English (compare the common pronunciation (outside Britain) of hunting as hunning [hʌnɪŋ]), is often back-etymologized as being from bran as if from cases where new items were supposedly “packaged up with unwanted grain (bran) in the 18th century to protect the objects during transit” (source unknown). Both variants are well attested.

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "brand new"?
"brand new" is spelled B-R-A-N-D- -N-E-W. The IPA pronunciation is /ˈbɹænd ˌn(j)uː/.
What does "brand new" mean?
As an adj, "brand new" means: Utterly new, as new as possible.
How do you pronounce "brand new"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "brand new" is /ˈbɹænd ˌn(j)uː/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "brand new"?
From brand (“firebrand”) + new, implying something that is newly forged (first citation 1570; compare fire-new (“fresh from the fire, brand-new”)). Alternatively, and less likely from brand as in a branding iron (i.e. newly-branded). The first ele... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Nearby English words

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

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.