Word.ws English Dictionary

brigue

/bɹiːɡ/

brigue noun: intrigue; secretive machinations.

Noun

brigue (plural brigues)

  1. (obsolete) Intrigue; secretive machinations.
    • the rise and decay of the Papal power , the politics of that Court , the Brigues of the Cardinals , the tricks of the ConclavesOctober 9 1749, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, in Letters to His Son, published in 1774

Verb

brigue (third-person singular simple present brigues, present participle briguing, simple past and past participle brigued)

  1. (obsolete) To achieve or obtain by underhand methods.
    • [W]e think it very unbecoming our Prudence, that the Determination ſhould be remitted to the Authors themſelves; when our Adversaries, by Briguing and Caballing, have cauſed so univerſal a Defection from us, that the greater Part of our Society has already deſerted to them, [...]1704, [Jonathan Swift], “Section I. The Introduction.”, in A Tale of a Tub. […], London: […] John Nutt, […], →OCLC, page 45

Proper noun capitalized: Brigue

Brigue

  1. French spelling of Brig, Switzerland.
    • The main line (Thoune to Brigue) is 52 miles long, while the branch from Spiez to Bönigen is 12¾ miles in length.1953 August, J. G. Click, “The Lötschberg Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 512

Forms of brigue

Noun
pluralbrigues
Verb
third-person singular presentbrigues
present participlebriguing
past participlebrigued
pastbrigued

Origin of brigue

Borrowed from French brigue, of uncertain origin. Compare Italian briga, Spanish brega.

Words that rhyme with brigue

Questions about brigue

What does brigue mean?
Brigue means intrigue; secretive machinations.
What part of speech is brigue?
Brigue can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce brigue?
Brigue is pronounced /bɹiːɡ/.
What is the plural of brigue?
The plural of brigue is brigues.

Words near brigue in the dictionary

  1. Brignacs
  2. brigs
  3. Brigstock
  4. Brigstocks
  5. Brigstow
  6. brigue
  7. brigued
  8. brigues
  9. briguing
  10. Brigus
  11. Brihaspati

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brigue (page history and authors); Brigue (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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Cite this entry: “brigue.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brigue. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.