Word.ws English Dictionary

biretta

biretta noun: a square cap, originally with four ridges across the top, surmounted by a tuft, worn by Roman Catholic clergy (and by some in the Anglican Church). A three-sided biretta is worn by Roman Catholic clergy for liturgical celebrations.

biretta: a square cap, originally with four ridges across the top, surmounted by a tuft, worn by Roman...
Image: Herwig Reidlinger, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

biretta (plural birettas)

  1. A square cap, originally with four ridges across the top, surmounted by a tuft, worn by Roman Catholic clergy (and by some in the Anglican Church). A three-sided biretta is worn by Roman Catholic clergy for liturgical celebrations.
    • It was a joy to snatch some brief respite, and find himself in the rectory drawing–room. Listening here was as pleasant as talking; just to watch was pleasant. The young priests who lived here wore cassocks and birettas; their faces were fine and mild, yet really strong, like the rector's face; and...1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
    • To right and left, embedded in their stalls, the other canons sit reverently engrossed, birettas hung on the walls behind; […]1964, Jan Morris, Spain, Faber and Faber, published 2008, →ISBN

biretta meaning in Tamil and Tagalog

biretta in Tamil

குருமார் அணியும் சதுரக்குல்லாய்

biretta in Tagalog

square cap
bireta

Forms of biretta

pluralbirettas

Origin of biretta

Borrowed from Italian biretta, berretta. Doublet of beret.

Words formed from biretta

Questions about biretta

What does biretta mean?
Biretta means a square cap, originally with four ridges across the top, surmounted by a tuft, worn by Roman Catholic clergy (and by some in the Anglican Church). A three-sided biretta is worn by Roman Catholic clergy for liturgical celebrations.
What is biretta in Tamil?
Biretta in Tamil is குருமார் அணியும் சதுரக்குல்லாய். See Biretta meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is biretta?
Biretta is a noun.
What is the plural of biretta?
The plural of biretta is birettas.

Words near biretta in the dictionary

  1. Birenbaum
  2. Birenbaums
  3. Birendranagar
  4. Bires
  5. Bireses
  6. biretta
  7. biretta'd
  8. birettaed
  9. birettas
  10. birettina
  11. birettinas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: biretta (page history and authors); biretta (Tamil 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-biretta.wav.

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