Word.ws English Dictionary

brad

/bɹæd//bɹad/

brad noun: a thin, small nail, with a slight projection at the top on one side instead of a head, or occasionally with a small domed head, similar to that of an escutcheon pin.

brad: a thin, small nail, with a slight projection at the top on one side instead of a head, or...
Image: Zyzomis, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

brad (plural brads)

  1. A thin, small nail, with a slight projection at the top on one side instead of a head, or occasionally with a small domed head, similar to that of an escutcheon pin.
    • Into the middle arch of each desk silver-headed brads had been hammered to form a lion, a bear, a ram, a dove, and in the midst a flaming torch.1936, Djuna Barnes, Nightwood, Faber & Faber, published 2007, page 5
  2. (US, elementary school usage) A paper fastener, a fastening device formed of thin, soft metal, such as shim brass, with a round head and a flat, split shank, which is spread after insertion in a hole in a stack of pages, in much the same way as a cotter pin or a split rivet.

Verb

brad (third-person singular simple present brads, present participle bradding, simple past and past participle bradded)

  1. (transitive) To attach using a brad.
  2. (transitive) To upset the end of a rod inserted in a hole so as to prevent it from being pulled out, as when riveting.

Noun (2)

brad (plural brads)

  1. A binary radian.

Proper noun capitalized: Brad

Brad

  1. A diminutive of the male given names Bradley, Bradly, and Bradford, also used as a formal given name.
    • […] Brad Schimel wants to make sure women don’t have the right to make their own health care decisions. If he wins, that right is gone,” Crawford says in the ad.2025 March 29, David Wright and Alex Leeds Matthews, “Musk flexes influence as Wisconsin Supreme Court race smashes spending records”, in CNN
    • As journalist Brad Polumbo pointed out, Kirk previously wrote on X: "Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There's ugly speech. There's gross speech. There's evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free."2025 September 16, Robby Soave, “Pam Bondi Is Really Wrong About Hate Speech”, in Reason
  2. A city in Hunedoara County, Romania.

Noun (3) capitalized: Brad

Brad (plural Brads)

  1. (incel slang) Synonym of Chadlite (“a man of a slightly lower ranking on a scale of physical attractiveness than Chad”)
    • Members then rate the user, with men who are 10/10 deemed "Chads," those just below them "Brads," those who are around 5/10 "normies," and those who are 3/10 or lower "subhuman" or "ogres."2025 April 22, Frances Willick, “'Your face looks grotesque': How looksmaxxing can harm young men and boys”, in CBC News, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2025
    Synonyms:
    Chadlite

brad meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali

brad in Hindi

ब्रैड, ब्राड

brad in Tamil

கூரியம், தட்டையான சிறுதலை உடைய ஆணி

brad in Marathi

ब्रॅड, ब्राड, ब्राडकडे

brad in Bengali

ব্র্যাড, ব্রাড, ব্র্যাডের কাছে
More languagesFewer languages
brad in Telugu
బ్ర్యాడ్, బ్రాద్, బ్రాడ్
brad in Malayalam
ബ്രാഡ്, ബ്രാഡിലേക്ക്
brad in Kannada
ಬ್ರ್ಯಾಡ್, ಬ್ರಾಡ್ಗೆ, ಬ್ರ್ಯಾಡ್ಗೆ
brad in Gujarati
બ્રૅડ, બ્રાડ
brad in Odia
ବ୍ରାଡ, ବ୍ର୍ଯାଡ୍, ବ୍ରାଡ୍
brad in Nepali
ब्राड, ब्र्याड, ब्र्याड गर्न
brad in Tagalog
kalabito, pakong-aspile

Examples of brad in a sentence

  • Brad and Nicole were waffling in humanities class because they didn't know the answer.
  • Brad and Mary have a thing going on.
  • Brad and Mary have a thing.

All 15 example sentences with brad

Synonyms of brad

Forms of brad

Noun
pluralbrads
pluralBrads
Verb
third-person singular presentbrads
present participlebradding
past participlebradded
pastbradded

Plural of brad: brads

Origin of brad

Late Middle English brad, variant of brod(d), from Old Norse broddr (“spike, shaft”), from Proto-Germanic *bruzdaz (compare Old English brord, Old High German brort), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrusdʰos (compare Welsh brath (“sting, prick”), Albanian bredh (“fir-tree”), Lithuanian bruzdùklis (“bridle”), Czech brzda (“brake”). Doublet of prod.

Clipping.

Words formed from brad

Phrases with brad

Words that rhyme with brad

26 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about brad

What does brad mean?
Brad means a thin, small nail, with a slight projection at the top on one side instead of a head, or occasionally with a small domed head, similar to that of an escutcheon pin.
What is brad in Hindi?
Brad in Hindi is ब्रैड, ब्राड. See Brad meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is brad?
Brad can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce brad?
Brad is pronounced /bɹad/ (UK).
What is the plural of brad?
The plural of brad is brads.

Words near brad in the dictionary

  1. bractlets
  2. bractlike
  3. bracts
  4. Bracy
  5. Bracys
  6. brad
  7. Brad as Pitt
  8. Brad Pittesque
  9. Brad Shitt
  10. bradaczekite
  11. bradavidin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brad (page history and authors); Brad (page history and authors); brad (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brad (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); brad (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brad (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brad (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brad (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brad (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brad (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brad (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); brad (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-brad.wav.

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