brève

/\bʁɛv\/ noun

Letters

5 characters

Frequency Rank

#8,347

in French word usage

Misspellings

8

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

brève is aFrenchnoun. It means: Syllabes, voyelles qu’on prononce rapidement. Pronounced \bʁɛv\. It ranks #8,347 in French word frequency. Often confused with brie and buée.

Key facts for brève
PropertyValue
Headwordbrève
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\bʁɛv\
Letters5
Frequency rank#8,347
Misspellings tracked8
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of brève in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for brève is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \bʁɛv\. Corpus data places it at rank #8,347 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 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 brève, with forms such as "bbrève", "breve", and "brrève". 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, "brie", "buée", "Brise", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is brève, spelled B-R-È-V-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Syllabes, voyelles qu’on prononce rapidement.
  2. 2
    Signe diacritique des alphabets latin et cyrillique qui marque cette prononciation rapide : ◌̆, ou avec chasse : ˘.
  3. 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. 4
    Information par définition courte.
  5. 5
    Version abrégée d'un acte rédigée en présence des parties par le notaire qui s’est déplacé
  6. 6
    Figure de note dont la valeur est égale à la moitié d’une longue ou deux semi-brèves. Équivalent à la carrée moderne.
  7. 7
    Produit d’une seule fonte.

Antonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: bbrève,breve,brrève,brvèe,brèev,brèvve,bèrve,rbève

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for brève

Misspelling Variants of "brève"

bbrève6breve5brrève6brvèe5brèev5brèvve6bèrve5rbève5
Misspelling Variants of "brève"

Frequency rank: #8,347 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "brève"?
"brève" is spelled B-R-È-V-E. The IPA pronunciation is \bʁɛv\.
What does "brève" mean?
As a noun, "brève" means: Syllabes, voyelles qu’on prononce rapidement.
What words are commonly confused with "brève"?
"brève" is commonly confused with "brie", "buée", "Brise". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "brève"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "brève" is \bʁɛv\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "brève" come from?
"brève" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby French words

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

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.