Word.ws English Dictionary

bereave

UK/bɪˈɹiːv//bɪˈɹiv/

bereave verb: to deprive by or as if by violence; to rob; to strip.

Verb

bereave (third-person singular simple present bereaves, present participle bereaving, simple past and past participle bereaved or bereft)

  1. (transitive) To deprive by or as if by violence; to rob; to strip.
    • Madam, you have bereft me of all words,c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • bereft of him who taught me how to sing1719, Thomas Tickell, On the Death of Mr. Addison
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To take away by destroying, impairing, or spoiling; take away by violence.
    • All your interest in those territories / Is utterly bereft you; all is lost.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • […] shall move you to bereave my life.c. 1589–1590 (date written), Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published...
  3. (transitive) To deprive of power; prevent.
  4. (transitive) To take away someone or something that is important or close; deprive.
    • Death bereaved him of his wife.
    • The family has been recently bereaved.
  5. (intransitive, rare) To destroy life; cut off.

bereave meaning in Bengali and Thai

bereave in Bengali

ছিনিয়ে নেওয়া, হারানো

bereave in Thai

take away someone or something important or close
พราก prâak

Forms of bereave

third-person singular presentbereaves
present participlebereaving
past participlebereaved
pastbereaved
past participlebereft
pastbereft

Origin of bereave

Inherited from Middle English bireven, from Old English berēafian (“to bereave, deprive of, take away, seize, rob, despoil”), from Proto-Germanic *biraubōną, and Old English berēofan (“to bereave, deprive, rob of”); both equivalent to be- + reave. Cognate with Dutch beroven (“to rob, deprive, bereave”), German berauben (“to deprive, rob, bereave”), Danish berøve (“to deprive of”), Norwegian berøve (“to deprive”), Swedish beröva (“to rob”), Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐍂𐌰𐌿𐌱𐍉𐌽 (biraubōn).

Words formed from bereave

Words that rhyme with bereave

45 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bereave

What does bereave mean?
Bereave means to deprive by or as if by violence; to rob; to strip.
What is bereave in Bengali?
Bereave in Bengali is ছিনিয়ে নেওয়া, হারানো. See Bereave meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is bereave?
Bereave is a verb.
How do you pronounce bereave?
Bereave is pronounced /bɪˈɹiːv/ (UK).
What is the past tense of bereave?
The past tense of bereave is bereaved.

Words near bereave in the dictionary

  1. Berean
  2. Bereanism
  3. Bereans
  4. bereavable
  5. bereaval
  6. bereave
  7. bereaved
  8. bereavedness
  9. bereavement
  10. bereavements
  11. bereaven

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bereave (page history and authors); bereave (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-bereave.ogg, en-au-bereave.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bereave.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bereave. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.