brace

Use Brace in a sentence

Ads

Invisalign® Official Site www.invisalign.com/ No Wires & No Brackets to Get In The Way of Your Life. Find Out How.

Clear Braces www.damonbraces.com/ Invisible Design, Fast Results and Greater Comfort. Find a Doctor Now.

noun

something that holds parts together or in place, as a clasp or clamp.

anything that imparts rigidity or steadiness.

Also called bitbrace, bitstock. Machinery. a device for holding and turning a bit for boring or drilling.

Building Trades. a piece of timber, metal, etc., for supporting or positioning another piece or portion of a framework.

Nautical. (on a square-rigged ship) a rope by which a yard is swung about and secured horizontally.

Music. leather loops sliding upon the tightening cords of a drum to change their tension and the drum's pitch.

Often, braces. Dentistry. a round or flat metal wire placed against the surfaces of the teeth for straightening irregularly arranged teeth.

Medicine/Medical. an appliance for supporting a weak joint or joints.

braces, Chiefly British, suspender ( def 1 ).

10.

a pair; couple: a brace of grouse.

11.

Printing.

one of two characters { or } used to enclose words or lines to be considered together.

bracket ( def 7 ).

12.

Music. connected staves.

13.

a protective band covering the wrist or lower part of the arm, especially a bracer.

14.

Military. a position of attention with exaggeratedly stiff posture.

Relevant Questions

What Are Braces?

How To Kiss With Braces

How To Remove Braces

How Are Braces Put On?

How To Make Braces At Ho...

Who Invented Braces For ...

What Are Braces?

How To Make Braces At Ho...

How To Remove Braces

How To Kiss With Braces

verb (used with object)

15.

to furnish, fasten, or strengthen with or as if with a brace.

16.

to fix firmly; make steady; secure against pressure or impact: He braces himself when the ship rolls. Brace yourself for some bad news.

17.

to make tight; increase the tension of.

18.

to act as a stimulant to.

19.

Nautical. to swing or turn around (the yards of a ship) by means of the braces.

20.

Military. to order (a subordinate) to assume and maintain a brace.

00:10

Brace is one of our favorite verbs.

So is peculate. Does it mean:

to steal or take dishonestly (money, esp. public funds, or property entrusted to one's care); embezzle.

to swindle, cheat, hoodwink, or hoax.

LEARN MORE FUN, UNUSUAL VERBS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

verb (used without object)

21.

Military. to assume a brace.

Verb phrases

22.

brace in, Nautical. to brace (the yards of a square-rigged vessel) more nearly athwartships, as for running free.

Idioms

23.

brace up, Informal. to summon up one's courage; become resolute: She choked back her tears and braced up.

Origin:
1300–50; (noun) Middle English < Anglo-French, Old French: pair of arms < Latin brā(c)chia plural (taken as feminine singular) of brā(c)chium arm (< Greek; see brachium); (v.) in part Middle English bracen (< Anglo-French bracier, derivative of brace; cf. embrace¹), in participle derivative of the noun

Related forms

o·ver·brace, verb (used with object), o·ver·braced, o·ver·brac·ing.

re·brace, verb (used with object), re·braced, re·brac·ing.

un·der·brace, noun

un·der·brace, verb (used with object), un·der·braced, un·der·brac·ing.

well-braced, adjective

Synonyms
1. vise. 4. stay, prop, strut. 10. See pair. 15. support, fortify, prop. 17. tauten, tense. 18. fortify.

Link To brace

Collins

World English Dictionary

brace (breɪs)

—n
1.	See also brace and bit In full: hand brace a hand tool for drilling holes, with a socket to hold the drill at one end and a cranked handle by which the tool can be turned
2.	something that steadies, binds, or holds up another thing
3.	a structural member, such as a beam or prop, used to stiffen a framework
4.	a sliding loop, usually of leather, attached to the cords of a drum: used to change its tension
5.	a pair; two, esp of game birds: a brace of partridges
6.	either of a pair of characters, { }, used for connecting lines of printing or writing or as a third sign of aggregation in complex mathematical or logical expressions that already contain parentheses and square brackets
7.	Also called: accolade a line or bracket connecting two or more staves of music
8.	(often plural) an appliance of metal bands and wires that can be tightened to maintain steady pressure on the teeth for correcting uneven alignment
9.	med any of various appliances for supporting the trunk, a limb, or teeth
10.	another word for bracer
11.	(in square-rigged sailing ships) a rope that controls the movement of a yard and thus the position of a sail
12.	See braces

—vb
13.	to provide, strengthen, or fit with a brace
14.	to steady or prepare (oneself or something) as before an impact
15.	(also intr) to stimulate; freshen; invigorate: sea air is bracing
16.	to control the horizontal movement of (the yards of a square-rigged sailing ship)

[C14: from Old French: the two arms, from Latin bracchia arms]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

brace

early 14c., "armor for the arms," from O.Fr. brace, braz "arms," also "length measured by two arms" (12c., Mod.Fr. bras "arm, power;" brasse "fathom, armful, breaststroke"), from L. bracchia pl. of bracchium "an arm, a forearm," from Gk. brakhion "arm" (see brachio-).

Applied to various devices for fastening and tightening, on notion of clasping arms. The verb "to render firm or steady by tensing" is mid-15c., with figurative extension to tonics, etc. that "brace" the nerves (cf. bracer "stiff drink"). Related: Braced; bracing.

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

brace (brās)
n.

An orthopedic appliance that supports or holds a movable part of the body in correct position while allowing motion of the part.
Often braces A dental appliance, constructed of bands and wires that is fixed to the teeth to correct irregular alignment.

FOLDOC

Computing Dictionary

brace definition

character
left brace or right brace.

Example sentences

Protruding metal pins deep inside each of her legs support a brace.

Hold the camera phone with both hands and brace your upper arms against your body when you shoot.

To prevent limb breakage, use wooden supports to brace sagging branches.

From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind.

Enjoy Dictionary.com ad-free! Learn more

lingual brace main brace skirt stage brace accolade accouplement

Matching Quote

"Emerson was the greater artist. His essays contain some of the most beautiful language in our literature. How Henry James could have thought he had never developed a "style" is to me one of the mysteries of criticism. Thoreau in Walden comes close to the master, but he falls behind in the homeliness of his details and in the occasional smugness of his social satire. It almost seems as if he were reacting against the chiseled beauty of Emerson's prose. The latter's sentences were so fine that he needed nothing else. They became, like marble statues, part of the garden that was Concord. Their composer, serene, calm, detached, bland in speech and manner, the soft-spoken philosopher revered by all, did not often trouble himself on his strolls in the woods and along the river to pluck the flowers or feed squirrels or even identify the different species of flora and fauna. As Thoreau observed, he wouldn't have been willing to trundle a wheelbarrow through the streets of Concord because it would have seemed out of character. Emerson communed with nature on a spiritual level, using his eyes to take in the landscape and his lungs the fresh air. He had no needs to brace himself with cold or rain or spend the night under the stars."

-Louis Auchincloss