brew
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "brew", 4-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 "brew" 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 "brew" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
brew is aEnglishverb. It means: To make tea or coffee by mixing tea leaves or coffee beans with hot water. Pronounced /bɹuː/. Often confused with BW and bro.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | brew |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /bɹuː/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #12,194 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for brew is 4 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɹuː/. Corpus data places it at rank #12,194 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for brew, with forms such as "bbrew", "berw", and "breww". 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, "BW", "bro", "bye", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English brewen, from Old English brēowan, from Proto-West Germanic *breuwan, from Proto-Germanic *brewwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁-. Doublet of burn. Cognate with Dutch brouwen, German brauen, Swedish brygga, Norwegian Bokmål brygge; … 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 brew, spelled B-R-E-W, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To make tea or coffee by mixing tea leaves or coffee beans with hot water.
- 2To heat wine, infusing it with spices; to mull.
- 3To make a hot soup by combining ingredients and boiling them in water.
- 4To make beer by steeping a starch source in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast.
- 5To foment or prepare, as by brewing.
- 6To attend to the business, or go through the processes, of brewing or making beer.
- 7To be in a state of preparation; to be mixing, forming, or gathering.
- 8To boil or seethe; to cook.
Etymology
From Middle English brewen, from Old English brēowan, from Proto-West Germanic *breuwan, from Proto-Germanic *brewwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁-. Doublet of burn. Cognate with Dutch brouwen, German brauen, Swedish brygga, Norwegian Bokmål brygge; also Ancient Greek φρέαρ (phréar, “well”), Latin fervēre (“to be hot; to burn; to boil”), Old Irish bruth (“violent, boiling heat”), Sanskrit भुर्वन् (bhurván, “motion of water”). It may be related to English barley.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbrew,berw,breww,brrew,brwe,rbew
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for brew
Misspelling Variants of "brew"
Frequency rank: #12,194 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "brew"?
What does "brew" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "brew"?
How do you pronounce "brew"?
What is the origin of the word "brew"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: