breve

American  

[breev, brev] / briv, brɛv /

noun

• breves
  plural

1. Phonetics, Orthography. a diacritic (˘) over a vowel to show that it is short, or to indicate a specific pronunciation, as ŭ in (kŭt) cut.

2. Law.

   1. an initial writ.

   2. a writ, as one issued by a court of law.

3. Music.

   1. the longest modern note, equivalent to two semibreves or whole notes.

   2. Also brevis a note in medieval mensural notation equal to one-half or one-third of a longa.

4. Prosody. a mark ( ˘ ) over a syllable to show that it is not stressed.

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breve British  

/ briːv /

noun

1. an accent, (˘), placed over a vowel to indicate that it is of short duration or is pronounced in a specified way

2. music a note, now rarely used, equivalent in time value to two semibreves

3. RC Church a less common word for brief

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• breves
  plural

Etymology

Origin of breve

1250–1300; Middle English < Medieval Latin, Latin breve, neuter of brevis short; see brief

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

breve breves

B. breve and B. longum bacteria groups were thought to be beneficial.

From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2024

One in particular, called B. breve, could help babies make the most of nutrients in breast milk and ward off bugs, preliminary tests suggest.

From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2024

His breve bid for the presidency will restore in the United States the ideals of Athenian democracy — or at least give us a good Greek yogurt parfait.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 30, 2019

Then the poor little thing ran out to "breve the fleshy air."

From Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's by Sophie May

Flat Hand.—A flat hand is a type of handwriting in which the characters have an oblate or flattened appearance, the o, a, g, &c., being horizontal ovals, like the minim and breve in music.

From The Detection of Forgery A Practical Handbook for the Use of Bankers, Solicitors, Magistrates' Clerks, and All Handling Suspected Documents by Douglas Blackburn

These missae breves, or short Masses, as Protestant churches used them in Bach’s time, retained only the Kyrie and Gloria of the Roman Catholic Mass, stopping short of the Credo for obvious reasons.

From New York Times ● Oct. 20, 2015

Macrons, breves, umlauts etc have been removed from the body of the text since they were very obtrusive and made reading difficult.

From "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries by Julius Caesar

This e-text uses some special characters, including: letters with breves: ă, ĕ, ŭ If these do not display correctly, make sure that your browser's file encoding is set to UTF-8.

From The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles Vol. 2 by George Gilfillan

O want of veneration! fools they seemed, But, persevering, with long breves, at last No more they shall be gaping greedy fools.

From Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 5 by Peter Anthony Motteux

The title-page of a book now before me runs as follows: "Kanuti Episcopi Vibergensis Quedam breves expositõs s legum et jurium cõcordantie et allegatiões circa leges iucie"; at the foot is "Ripis, M. Brand, MIƆIIII".

From Book Collecting: A Guide for Amateurs by J. Herbert (John Herbert) Slater