/bɹɔːd/, /bɹɔd/, /bɹɑd/
OriginEarly 20th century, apparent phono-semantic matching of German Braut (“bride”, also “girlfriend”, and more generally “broad, young woman”).
- Wide in extent or scope.
“three feet broad”
“the broad expanse of ocean”
“Thus Falstaff, in Shakspeare, is a character of the broadest comedy, giving himself unreservedly to the senses, coolly ignoring the Reason, whilst he invokes its name, pretending to patriotism and to ”
- Extended, in the sense of diffused; open; clear; full.
“broad and open day”
“crushing the minds of its victims in the broad and open day”
- Having a large measure of any thing or quality; unlimited; unrestrained.
“a broad mixture of falsehood”
- Comprehensive; liberal; enlarged.
“The words in the Constitution are broad enough to include the case.”
“in a broad, statesmanlike, and masterly way”
- Plain; evident.
- General rather than specific.
“to be in broad agreement”
- Unsubtle; obvious.
“Lee: I wrote that line for you. Maeve: A bit broad, if you ask me.”
- Free; unrestrained; unconfined.
“as broad and general as the casing air”
- datedGross; coarse; indelicate.
“a broad compliment; a broad joke; broad humour”
- Strongly regional.
“She still has a broad Scottish accent, despite moving to California 20 years ago.”
- Velarized, i.e. not palatalized.
- UKA shallow lake, one of a number of bodies of water in eastern Norfolk and Suffolk.
- A lathe tool for turning down the insides and bottoms of cylinders.
- UK, historicalA British gold coin worth 20 shillings, issued by the Commonwealth of England in 1656.
- A kind of floodlight.
“[…] fresnel spotlights, old-type broads, sky-pans, cone-lights, etc.”
“Some broads have barn doors (see page 115) to block gross light spill into other set areas; others have even an adjustable beam, […]”
“Light bounced from large white surfaces (e.g., matte reflector boards, or a white ceiling). Floodlights include scoops, broads, floodlight, banks, internally reflected units, strip lights, and cyclora”
- archaic, slangA playing card.
“I reckon as old Sol couldn't ha' lived without a pack of broads. If he couldn't find anybody to play with him, he'd play alone, […]”
- US, datedA prostitute, a woman of loose morals.
““Now we go up Bowery Street look at broads. Me pay.””
- US, colloquial, dated, slang, sometimesA woman or girl.
“They always hook you in the end, them broads. This whole trouble is on account of a dame reads a book.”
“Hey, man, Truck, you got to understand, she's a no class broad and you a gross son of a bitch. Naturally, she don't like you.”
“The grunts resumed their bitching at the heat, the hills, and the lack of cold beer and hot broads.”
Formsbroader(comparative) · broadest(superlative) · broads(plural) · Broads(plural)