bream

UK/bɹiːm//bɹɪm/

bream noun: a European fresh-water cyprinoid fish of the genus Abramis, little valued as food. Several species are known.

Image: Микова Наталия, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

bream (plural bream or breams)

A European fresh-water cyprinoid fish of the genus Abramis, little valued as food. Several species are known.
(UK) A species in that genus, Abramis brama.

Synonyms:

carp bream
An American fresh-water fish, of various species of Lepomis and allied genera, which are also called sunfishes and pondfishes.
A marine sparoid fish of the genus Pagellus, and allied genera.

Verb

bream (third-person singular simple present breams, present participle breaming, simple past and past participle breamed)

To clean (e.g. a ship's bottom of clinging shells, seaweed, etc.) by the application of fire and scraping.

Proper noun capitalized: Bream

Bream (countable and uncountable, plural Breams)

A surname.
A village in West Dean parish, Forest of Dean district, Gloucestershire, England (OS grid ref SO6005).
An unincorporated community in Kanawha County, West Virginia, United States.

bream meaning in Tamil, Arabic and Vietnamese

bream in Tamil

நமது பூமியில் காணப்படும், மீன் இனங்களில் ஒன்றாகும்

bream in Arabic

fish of the genus Abramis: أَبْرَامِيس ʔabrāmīs
Abramis brama: سَمَك البْرِيم samak al-brīm

Examples of bream in a sentence

Barramundi, bream, flounder, garfish, John Dory, snapper and Silver Dory are suitable for this recipe.
Try using abalone gut, peeled prawns and cunji for bait for the bream and drummer found here.
FOUR BIG — catches of bream have been reported by these champion fishermen, Mr. and Mrs.

All 11 example sentences with bream

Synonyms of bream

carp bream

Forms of bream

Noun
plural	bream
plural	breams
Verb
third-person singular present	breams
present participle	breaming
past participle	breamed
past	breamed
Proper noun
plural	Breams

Plural of bream: bream or breams

Origin of bream

From Middle English breme, from Old French breme, bresme, braisme, brasme (whence French brème), from Frankish *brahsma, *brahsima (whence Dutch brasem), from Proto-West Germanic *brahsmō (whence Old High German brahsma, brahsmo, brahsina, brehsina (whence German Brasse, Brachse (“bream”))), from Proto-Germanic *brahsmô, *brahsinō, *brahsmaz (“bream”), perhaps from Proto-Germanic *brehwanaz (“shining, glittery, sparkly”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerek- (“to shine”) (see braid (verb)).

Compare broom, and German brennen (as in ein Schiff brennen).

English surname, from an obsolete derivative of the root of the noun broom. Also from the adjective breme (“famous”). Compare the spelling variant Braham.

Words formed from bream

Phrases with bream

Words that rhyme with bream

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bream

What does bream mean?: Bream means a European fresh-water cyprinoid fish of the genus Abramis, little valued as food. Several species are known.
What is bream in Tamil?: Bream in Tamil is நமது பூமியில் காணப்படும், மீன் இனங்களில் ஒன்றாகும். See Bream meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is bream?: Bream can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce bream?: Bream is pronounced /bɹiːm/ (UK).
What is the plural of bream?: The plural of bream is bream.

Words near bream in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: bream (page history and authors); Bream (page history and authors); bream (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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

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