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• bream
  bream

  noun

  any of various freshwater fishes of the genus Abramis, as A. brama, of Europe, with a compressed, deep body and silvery scales.
• Bream
  Bream

  noun

  Julian (Alexander), 1933–2020, English guitarist and lutenist.

bream

¹ American  

[brim, breem] / brɪm, brim /

noun

• bream,
  plural
• breams
  plural

1. any of various freshwater fishes of the genus Abramis, as A. brama, of Europe, with a compressed, deep body and silvery scales.

2. any of various related and similar fishes.

3. any of several porgies, as the sea bream, Archosargus rhomboidalis.

4. any of several freshwater sunfishes of the genus Lepomis.

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bream ² American  

[breem] / brim /

verb (used with object)

Nautical.

1. to clean (a ship's bottom) by applying burning furze, reeds, etc., to soften the pitch and loosen adherent matter.

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Bream ³ American  

[breem] / brim /

noun

1. Julian (Alexander), 1933–2020, English guitarist and lutenist.

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bream ¹ British  

/ brɪm, briːm, brɪm /

noun

1. any of several Eurasian freshwater cyprinid fishes of the genus Abramis , esp A. brama , having a deep compressed body covered with silvery scales

2. a similar cyprinid, Blicca bjoerkna

3. short for sea bream

4. any of various marine fishes

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Bream ² British  

/ briːm /

noun

1. Julian ( Alexander ). born 1933, English guitarist and lutenist

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bream ³ British  

/ briːm /

verb

1. nautical (formerly) to clean debris from (the bottom of a vessel) by heating to soften the pitch

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• bream
  plural
• breams
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of bream¹

1350–1400; Middle English breme < Anglo-French; Old French bresme, braisme < Old Low Franconian *brahsima; compare Old High German brahsema, Dutch brasem

Origin of bream²

1620–30; < Middle Dutch brem ( e ) furze

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bream Bream breams

He then held up a large sea bream as a symbol of good luck and celebration.

From Barron's ● Nov. 26, 2025

The sea bass and bream are always tasty.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025

The main course, a whole fried sea bream, served with a ginger fish sauce caramel, peanuts, herbs, lemon, and wild pepper leaves to delicately wrap each fried morsel, truly blew me away.

From Salon ● Sep. 3, 2025

Several miles away, clam fishermen have tested similar measures to prevent sea bream from eating their potential harvest, too, stringing mesh across poles in a small patch of shallow water.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 23, 2023

Everyone liked bream; the tiger fish weren’t as popular.

From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer

“Like many companies in our industry, we have experienced changes in customer purchasing patterns and production volumes,” Laura Bream, the company’s vice president of human resources, said in a statement.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026

Here is some of what that version involves, from an interview two weeks ago by Shannon Bream of “Fox News Sunday” with Megan Romer, national co-chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

On “Fox News Sunday,” anchor Shannon Bream allocated a mere four seconds to the entire event, treating it as a footnote before moving on to interview a Democratic senator.

From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2026

The new series will follow Brydon's character Bill Bream who is forced to rent out his spare rooms following his divorce.

From BBC ● Mar. 25, 2026

Captain Bream rose with such energy that he unintentionally spurned his chair—his own solid peculiar chair—and caused it to pirouette on one leg before tumbling backward with a crash.

From The Young Trawler by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

After a minute marked by tense silence, two breams emerged from the hole.

From National Geographic ● Mar. 16, 2018

Since arriving in the Solomon Islands, we have found biofluorescence in lineages in which it never has been reported before, including breams and flatheads.

From New York Times ● Jul. 6, 2012

There was another fish like barbilles, and another like breams, headed like a delicate fish, called in Spain besugo, between red and gray.

From A Narrative of the expedition of Hernando de Soto into Florida published at Evora in 1557 by A Gentleman of Elvas [pseud.]

The fishes commonly taken in this way are pickerel, suckers, perch, eels, pouts, breams, and shiners,—from thirty to sixty weight in a night.

From Excursions by Henry David Thoreau

In the night while calm, we fished with hook and line, and caught good store of fish viz., snappers, breams, old-wives, and dog-fish. 

From Early Australian Voyages: Pelsart, Tasman, Dampier by John Pinkerton

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