bracing

/ˈbɹeɪsɪŋ/

bracing is the present participle and gerund of brace.

Noun

bracing (countable and uncountable, plural bracings)

(uncountable) That which braces.
- In general, we believe it is better to use too much bracing and then reduce the braces to the proper size rather than to start with too little. Cutting down braces gives the patient a feeling of accomplishment1969, Daniel Ruge, Spinal cord injuries, page 174
(countable) A brace.
- For stability against lateral forces, vertical bracings are provided.1997, Wind Effects on Structures, →ISBN, page 101
(US) A form of the military attention stance.

brace (third-person singular simple present braces, present participle bracing, simple past and past participle braced)

(intransitive, transitive) To prepare for something bad, such as an impact or blow.
- All hands, brace for impact!
To place in a position for resisting pressure; to hold firmly.
- He braced himself against the crowd.
To swing round the yards of a square rigged ship, using braces, to present a more efficient sail surface to the direction of the wind.
- to brace the yards
To stop someone for questioning, usually said of police.
To confront with questions, demands or requests.
- Just about then the young kid who had braced us when we came in uttered a curse and made for the door.1980, Stephen King, The Wedding Gig
To furnish with braces; to support; to prop.
- to brace a beam in a building

bracing (comparative more bracing, superlative most bracing)

Invigorating or stimulating.
- Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 13”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
- The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

By surface analysis, brace + -ing.

2 more rhymesFewer rhymes

What does bracing mean?: Bracing means invigorating or stimulating.
What is bracing the present participle and gerund of?: Bracing is the present participle and gerund of brace.
What part of speech is bracing?: Bracing can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce bracing?: Bracing is pronounced /ˈbɹeɪsɪŋ/.

Adapted from Wiktionary: bracing (page history and authors); brace (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: 2026-09-02

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

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