breeze
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "breeze", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "breeze" 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 "breeze" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
breeze is aEnglishnoun. It means: A light, gentle wind. Pronounced /bɹiːz/. It ranks #8,761 in English word frequency. Often confused with bronze and breezy.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | breeze |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɹiːz/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #8,761 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 9 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for breeze is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɹiːz/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,761 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for breeze, with forms such as "bbreeze", "bereze", and "breeez". 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 9 confusable-pair relationships, "bronze", "breezy", "breezes", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From the earlier (nautical) term brise, brize (“breeze”), from Middle English brees (“wind”). Ultimate origin obscure. Variously supposed to derive from a Germanic source like Saterland Frisian Briese (“breeze”), West Frisian brys (“a cool wind”), Dutch bri… 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 breeze, spelled B-R-E-E-Z-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A light, gentle wind.
- 2Any activity that is easy, not testing or difficult.
- 3Wind blowing across a cricket match, whatever its strength.
- 4An excited or ruffled state of feeling; a flurry of excitement; a disturbance; a quarrel.
- 5A brief workout for a racehorse.
Etymology
From the earlier (nautical) term brise, brize (“breeze”), from Middle English brees (“wind”). Ultimate origin obscure. Variously supposed to derive from a Germanic source like Saterland Frisian Briese (“breeze”), West Frisian brys (“a cool wind”), Dutch bries (“breeze”), early Dutch brysen (“to blow cool and fresh”), or from Spanish brisa (“northeast wind”). The earliest attestations are in Middle English brees (1460), Catalan brisa, and Italian brezza (all in 15th century), with Spanish (1504) and Portuguese briza (16th century) following closely after. The aforementioned Dutch cognates and French brise, however, are attested later than the term in English. The only internal hypothesis for any of those languages is a modification of Old Occitan bisa (“strong wind”), which is not widely accepted. Compare also Albanian breshër (“hail”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbreeze,bereze,breeez,breezze,breze,brezee,brreeze,rbeeze
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for breeze
Misspelling Variants of "breeze"
Frequency rank: #8,761 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: