Etymology

breve

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Today it means: A semicircular diacritical mark (˘) placed above a vowel, commonly used to mark its quantity as short. Full definition →

Middle English breve ← Old French brieve ← Latin brevis
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breve · noun1

  1. Latin · derived frombrevis“short”
  2. Old French · derived frombrieve
  3. Middle English · inherited frombreve
  4. English todaybreve

From Middle English breve, variant of bref, from Old French brieve, breve (feminine form of brief, bref), from Latin brevis (“short”).

breve · noun2

  1. Italian · borrowed frombreve
  2. Italian · borrowed frombreve
  3. English todaybreve

Borrowed from Italian breve.

Words from the same roots

Latinbrevis all →

briefbrevetbrevi-brevipenbrevipennatebrevirostralbreviumsemibreve

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.