brève
French, noun/bʁɛv/
brève is spelled B-R-È-V-E (5 letters) and appears 7.4 times per million words in written French, the 8,354th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Brève is a French feminine noun meaning “a brief piece of information or news (as opposed to the headline)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is also a feminine singular of bref. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Syllabes, voyelles qu’on prononce rapidement”.
What does brève mean in English?
noun
- 1
femininea brief piece of information or news (as opposed to the headline)
- 2
feminineshort vowel
- 3
femininebreve
- 4
femininepitta; any bird belonging to the passerine family Pittidae
adjective
- 1
femininefeminine singular of bref
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Syllabes, voyelles qu’on prononce rapidement. 2. Signe diacritique des alphabets latin et cyrillique qui marque cette prononciation rapide : ◌̆, ou avec chasse : ˘. 3. Nom donné à plusieurs espèces de passereaux des forêts tropicales de l’Ancien Monde, à queue très courte, formant la famille des pittidés. 4. Information par définition courte.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of brève
- brèves plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce brève?
- /bʁɛv/
- \bʁɛv\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
How common is brève in French?
brève appears 7.4 times per million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).