Etymologically
Log in

bridal

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 15:29. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /ˈbɹaɪd(ə)l/[1]
  • UK: /ˈbraɪ.dl̩/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bridale (“wedding, wedding feast”),[2][3][4] inherited from Old English brȳdealu (“wedding feast”), a compound from Old English brȳd (“bride”) + ealu (“ale”),[3][5][6][7] that is, the drinking of ale at a wedding.[5][4][6] The English words are bride and ale.[7][8] As the second syllable lost its stress, it was taken for the suffix -al, first as in nouns like espousal and later as in adjectives like nuptial,[4][8][9][7] and this association has been strong since the late 16th century.[10][5] The adjective comes from the noun, though it was also understood as a derivative of bride with -al.[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A wedding feast: in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for the year 1075 or 1076,[7][11][4] on the wedding of the Earl of Norfolk to the daughter of the Earl of Hereford, at which the guests plotted a rebellion against William the Conqueror: "There was that bride-ale, the source of man's bale".[11]

Semantic evolution

Ale once also meant a festival at which ale was drunk, and the bride-ale is the earliest such ale recorded in English.[11] Middle English shortened it to bridale and bridal, recorded from about 1200 in the Ormulum,[4][11] and Chaucer used bridale once.[12] By the 14th century it meant the whole wedding, not only the feast.[11][7] In the 16th century the spelling -al or -all marked the loss of the long a and of the sense "ale",[4] and by the 17th century the word was much used before nouns such as chamber, bed and cake.[11] Because its ending looked like that of adjectives such as natal and mortal, it came to be felt as an adjective, certainly by the 18th century;[11][4] Barnhart finds the attributive bridall in Spenser (1596) and the adjective in 1748,[4] while the OED dates the adjective to before 1425.[7] Johnson (1755) entered only the adjective, "belonging to a wedding; nuptial".[13] The noun is now archaic or literary,[14][5] though still used in Scotland for a wedding.[15] Etymonline quotes Fitzedward Hall (1873) on the irony that the word now suggests champagne rather than ale.[16]

Timeline

  • 1075–76 – brȳdealu, a wedding feast, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.[7][4]
  • c. 1200 – bridale, in the Ormulum.[4]
  • before 1225 – figurative, a union likened to a marriage (obsolete by 1927).[7]
  • 14th century – the whole wedding, not only the feast.[11]
  • before 1425 – adjective, of a wedding.[7]
  • 1596 – attributive bridall, in Spenser's Faerie Queene.[4]
  • 1747 – adjective, like a bride.[7]
  • 1857 – bridal suite.[16]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of or relating to a bride or a wedding; nuptial: a bridal gown.[3][7][13]
  2. Meant for a newly married couple: the bridal suite.[3][14]
  3. Like a bride.[7]

Noun

  1. (archaic) A wedding, or the festivities of a wedding.[3][14][5]

Word family

  • bridally
  • prebridal

Usage notes

Dictionary.com lists bridal among the words confused with bridle.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  12. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  14. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ 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)
  16. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com