bruise
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 "bruise", 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 "bruise" 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 "bruise" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
bruise is aEnglishverb. It means: To strike (a person), originally with something flat or heavy, but now specifically in such a way as to discolour the skin without breaking it; to contuse. Pronounced /bɹuːz/. Often confused with brush and brute.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bruise |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /bɹuːz/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #22,909 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 19 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bruise is 6 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɹuːz/. Corpus data places it at rank #22,909 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for bruise, with forms such as "bbruise", "briuse", and "brruise". 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 19 confusable-pair relationships, "brush", "brute", "bruises", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English bruisen, brusen, brosen, brisen, bresen, from a merger two words, both ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrews- (“to break”): * Old English brȳsan, brīesan (“to bruise; crush”), from Proto-Germanic *brausijaną, *brūsijaną (“to break;… 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 bruise, spelled B-R-U-I-S-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To strike (a person), originally with something flat or heavy, but now specifically in such a way as to discolour the skin without breaking it; to contuse.
- 2To damage the skin of (fruit or vegetables), in an analogous way.
- 3Of fruit or vegetables, to gain bruises through being handled roughly.
- 4To become bruised.
- 5To fight with the fists; to box.
- 6To harm or injure somebody's feelings or self-esteem.
- 7To impair (gin) by shaking rather than stirring.
Etymology
From Middle English bruisen, brusen, brosen, brisen, bresen, from a merger two words, both ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrews- (“to break”): * Old English brȳsan, brīesan (“to bruise; crush”), from Proto-Germanic *brausijaną, *brūsijaną (“to break; crumble; crack”). Provided the word's sense. * Anglo-Norman bruiser, bruser (“to break, smash, shatter”), from Gaulish *brus-, from Proto-Celtic *bruseti (“to break”). Provided the word's form. Cognate with Scots brizz, German brausen (“to roar; boom; pound”), Old English brosnian (“to crumble, fall apart”), Dutch broos (“brittle”), German Brosame (“crumb”), dialectal Norwegian brøysk (“breakable”), Latin frustum (“bit, scrap”), Old Church Slavonic бръснути (brŭsnuti, “to rake”), Albanian breshër (“hail”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbruise,briuse,brruise,bruies,brusie,burise,rbuise
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for bruise
Misspelling Variants of "bruise"
Frequency rank: #22,909 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: