Etymologically
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breadth

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Pronunciation

  • /bɹɛdθ/, /bɹɛtθ/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English brede + -th, on the pattern of length and strength.[2][3][4][5][6][7] brede, brede in Middle English, is from Old English brǣdu (“breadth, width”),[8][9][10][5][11] a noun formed from brād (“broad”), the source of broad.[12][13][14] Hoad and Barnhart give its Germanic form as Proto-Germanic *braidjōn,[5][12] and its cognates include Old High German breiti, German Breite, Old Norse breidd and Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐌰𐌹𐌳𐌴𐌹 (braidei).[5][14][15] Barnhart finds the form breadeth probably before 1425,[12] and Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The distance from side to side; width: 1459, in an inventory of Sir John Fastolf's wardrobe in the Paston Letters.[2] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date the word to the early 16th century.[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The older brede had meant width since Old English, and Chaucer used it fifteen times;[10][16][8] the remodelled breadth replaced it.[17][7] From 1532 the word was used figuratively for wide scope or reach,[2] which later included breadth of mind or sympathy.[18][19] From 1534 it named a piece of cloth of full width,[2][3] and since 1591 an area of land measured across.[2] In 1770 painters began to use it for the effect of a unified whole in a picture,[2][3] and in the 19th century it was briefly used for coarse freedom in treating indecent subjects, after a sense of broad.[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as the measure of a surface from side to side.[20] In Scotland and Yorkshire it could mean the acreage of a farm, or a row of potatoes.[21]

Timeline

  • 1459 – the measurement from side to side, width.[2]
  • a1513 – the width of something taken as a measure, as in a hair's breadth.[2]
  • 1532 – largeness of scope or reach.[2]
  • 1534 – a piece of cloth of full width.[2]
  • 1591 – an area of land measured across.[2]
  • 1770 – in painting, a broad, unified effect.[2]
  • 1836 – great width, wideness.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The distance from one side of something to the other; width: The pool is twelve metres in breadth.[18][19][2]
  2. Wide range or scope: the breadth of her reading.[18][19][2]
  3. Openness of mind; tolerance or liberality of views.[18]
  4. A piece of cloth or other material of the full width in which it is made.[18][19][2]
  5. A wide area or expanse.[19][2]
  6. In art, a broad, unified effect achieved by keeping details subordinate.[2][3]

Word family

  • breadthwise
  • breadthless
  • breadthways
  • fingerbreadth
  • hairbreadth
  • hairsbreadth
  • handbreadth
  • handsbreadth

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  8. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  9. ^ Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  12. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  13. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  14. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  15. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  16. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  17. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  18. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  19. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  20. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  21. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)