brassiere

American  

[bruh-zeer] / brəˈzɪər /

Or brassière

noun

brassieres plural

1. a woman's undergarment for supporting the breasts.

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brassiere British  

/ ˈbræsɪə, ˈbræz- /

noun

1. Often shortened to: bra.  a woman's undergarment for covering and supporting the breasts

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• brassieres
  plural

Etymology

Origin of brassiere

1910–15; < French brassière bodice worn as an undergarment to support the breasts (now obsolete in this sense), Middle French bracieres camisole, Old French: armor for the arms, equivalent to bras arm ( see brace) + -ière, suffix added to body part nouns, the resultant derivative denoting an article for that part < Latin -āria -ary

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

brassiere brassieres

The film’s laughs come from empathy, not derision, when a brassiere saleswoman tut-tuts that Margaret is “not even a 32A.”

From Washington Post ● Apr. 25, 2023

Only when DNA technology advanced to the point where a complete genetic profile could be developed from evidence gleaned from the girl’s brassiere could a solid link be made, Detective Leah Wagner said.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 22, 2020

Russell, though, found the brassiere uncomfortable and insisted on using her own instead.

From BBC ● Jun. 7, 2017

And there is Gail Chovan, a designer and teacher in Austin, Tex., who after a double mastectomy rejected breast reconstruction and the padded brassiere her mother had urged her to wear.

From New York Times ● May 23, 2017

I’ve gotten so thin, I’ve had to take in the waistbands of all my panties and stuff the cups of my brassiere with handkerchiefs.

From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez

“So girls started wearing corsets, girdles and brassieres over their clothes, and this then led to the trend for underwear as outerwear.”

From New York Times ● Dec. 15, 2021

With ceremony, Margaret calls the date she’s going with her mother to buy her first brassieres “Bra Day.”

From Slate ● Aug. 13, 2019

The exhibition traces the history of brassieres, from their development as "bust supporters" in the 1860s through their wide adoption in the early 20th century to the introduction of Lycra in the late 1950s.

From US News ● Apr. 13, 2016

But brassieres aren’t designed for us—they get loose.

From The New Yorker ● Oct. 21, 2013

In the spring of 1959, when discussions of my fertilization got under way, my mother couldn’t foresee that women would soon be burning their brassieres by the thousand.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides