Word.ws English Dictionary

broad

UK/bɹɔːd/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/bɹoːd/

broad adjective: wide in extent or scope.

Adjective

broad (comparative broader, superlative broadest)

  1. Wide in extent or scope.
    • three feet broad
    • the broad expanse of ocean
  2. Extended, in the sense of diffused; open; clear; full.
    • broad and open day1720, William Bartlet, a sermon
    • crushing the minds of its victims in the broad and open dayMay 12, 1860, Eliza Watson, Witches and witchcraft (in Once A Week, No. 46.)
  3. Having a large measure of any thing or quality; unlimited; unrestrained.
    • a broad mixture of falsehood1693, [John Locke], “§140”, in Some Thoughts Concerning Education, London: […] A[wnsham] and J[ohn] Churchill, […], →OCLC
  4. Comprehensive; liberal; enlarged.
    • The words in the Constitution are broad enough to include the case.1819, D. Daggett, Sturges v. Crowninshield
    • in a broad, statesmanlike, and masterly way1859, Edward Everett, Daniel Webster: An Oration On the Occasion of the Dedication of the Statue of Mr. Webster
  5. Plain; evident.
    • a broad hint
  6. General rather than specific.
    • to be in broad agreement
  7. Unsubtle; obvious.
    • Lee: I wrote that line for you. Maeve: A bit broad, if you ask me.2018 April 22, “Journey into Night” (39:17 from the start), in Westworld, season 2, episode 1, spoken by Maeve Millay and Lee Sizemore (Thandie Newton and Simon Quarterman), via HBO
  8. Free; unrestrained; unconfined.
    • as broad and general as the casing airc. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  9. (dated) Gross; coarse; indelicate.
    • a broad compliment; a broad joke; broad humour
  10. Strongly regional.
    • She still has a broad Scottish accent, despite moving to California 20 years ago.
  11. (Gaelic languages) Velarized, i.e. not palatalized.

Noun (1)

broad (plural broads)

  1. (UK) A shallow lake, one of a number of bodies of water in eastern Norfolk and Suffolk.
  2. A lathe tool for turning down the insides and bottoms of cylinders.
  3. (UK, historical) A British gold coin worth 20 shillings, issued by the Commonwealth of England in 1656.
  4. A kind of floodlight.
    • […] fresnel spotlights, old-type broads, sky-pans, cone-lights, etc.1974, The Video Handbook, page 71
    • Some broads have barn doors (see page 115) to block gross light spill into other set areas; others have even an adjustable beam, […]1976, Herbert Zettl, Television Production Handbook, volume 10, page 105
  5. (archaic, slang) A playing card.
    • I reckon as old Sol couldn't ha' lived without a pack of broads. If he couldn't find anybody to play with him, he'd play alone, […]1927, Arthur Morris Binstead, The works of A. M. Binstead, volume 2, page 118

Noun (2)

broad (plural broads)

  1. (US, dated) A prostitute, a woman of loose morals.
    • “Now we go up Bowery Street look at broads. Me pay.”1925, John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, 1st section, page 94
  2. (US, dated, slang) A woman or girl.
    • They always hook you in the end, them broads. This whole trouble is on account of a dame reads a book.1950, Albert Mannheimer, Born Yesterday, spoken by Harry Brock
    • Hey, man, Truck, you got to understand, she's a no class broad and you a gross son of a bitch. Naturally, she don't like you.1974, Oscar Williams, Michael Allin, Truck Turner, spoken by Jerry

Proper noun capitalized: Broad

Broad (plural Broads)

  1. A surname.

broad meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

broad in Hindi

broad, wide, spacious
पृथु pŕthu
broad
चौड़ा cauṛā

broad in Tamil

அகண்ட, அகன்ற, அகன்றபகுதி, விரிந்த பக்கம், ஆற்றின் விரிந்த பகுதி, அப்ல்விரிவான

broad in Marathi

व्यापक

broad in Urdu

broad
چوڑا cauṛā
More languagesFewer languages
broad in Bengali
চওড়া coōṛa
broad in Malayalam
വീതിയുള്ള, വീതികൂടിയ, വിശാല, വലിയ
broad in Kannada
ವಿಶಾಲವಾದ, ಅಗಲವಾದ, ವಿಸ್ತಾರವಾದ, ಸ್ಥೂಲವಾದ
broad in Gujarati
વ્યાપક
broad in Odia
ଓସାରିଆ osāriā, ଓସାର osāra, ଚଉଡ଼ା cauṛā, ଜାତ jāta
broad in Sanskrit
पृथु pṛthú, उरु urú, पृथुल pṛthula, स्थविर sthávira
broad in Nepali
व्यापक
broad in Persian
دختر doxtar

Examples of broad in a sentence

  • He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company...
  • A broad section of the political class now recognises the need for change but remains unable to see the necessity of a fundamental overhaul.2013 June 28, Joris Luyendijk, “Our banks are out of control”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 3, archived from the original on...
  • To meet it, pro-democracy organizations, universities and law firms must bravely speak up against abuses of power while building the broadest possible coalition to stand up for fundamental rights.2025 November 16, Daniel Altschuler, Javier Corrales, “How government repression is born – and how to resist it”, in The Guardian, archived...
  • Floodlights include scoops, broads, floodlight, banks, internally reflected units, strip lights, and cyclorama lights.2015, Jim Owens, Television Production, page 194:

All 40 example sentences with broad

Synonyms of broad

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of broad

Forms of broad

Adjective
comparativebroader
superlativebroadest
Noun
pluralbroads
Proper noun
pluralBroads

Plural of broad: broads

Origin of broad

From Middle English brood, brode, from Old English brād (“broad, flat, open, extended, spacious, wide, ample, copious”), from Proto-West Germanic *braid, from Proto-Germanic *braidaz (“broad, wide”), of uncertain origin. Cognates Cognate with Yola brode (“broad”), North Frisian bread, breeđ, briad, briid, briidj (“wide”), Saterland Frisian and West Frisian breed (“broad, wide”), Bavarian brad, broad (“broad, wide”), Central Franconian and Luxembourgish breet (“broad, wide”), Dutch breed (“broad, wide”), German breit (“broad, wide”), Vilamovian braat (“broad, wide”), Yiddish ברייט (breyt, “broad, wide”), Danish and Swedish bred (“broad, wide”), Faroese and Icelandic breiður (“broad, wide”), Norwegian Bokmål bred, brei (“broad, wide”), Norwegian Nynorsk brei, breid (“broad, wide”), Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐌰𐌹𐌸𐍃 (braiþs, “broad, wide”).

Early 20th century, apparent phono-semantic matching of German Braut (“bride”, also “girlfriend”, and more generally “broad, chick”).

Words formed from broad

Phrases with broad

27 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with broad

11 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about broad

What does broad mean?
Broad means wide in extent or scope.
What is broad in Hindi?
Broad in Hindi is पृथु (pŕthu), चौड़ा (cauṛā). See Broad meaning in Hindi.
How do you use broad in a sentence?
He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.
What part of speech is broad?
Broad can be an adjective, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce broad?
Broad is pronounced /bɹɔːd/ (UK).

Words near broad in the dictionary

  1. broachest
  2. broacheth
  3. broaching
  4. broaching to
  5. broacht
  6. broad
  7. broad acres
  8. broad across the beam
  9. broad and shallow
  10. broad antigen
  11. broad antigens

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: broad (page history and authors); Broad (page history and authors); चौड़ा (Hindi) (page history and authors); broad (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); broad (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); چوڑا (Urdu) (page history and authors); চওড়া (Bengali) (page history and authors); broad (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); broad (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); broad (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ଓସାର (Odia) (page history and authors); उरु (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); broad (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.

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

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