1 [C] a device that holds things firmly together or holds and supports them in position:
a neck brace (= worn to support the neck after an injury)
2 [C] (AmE braces [pl.]) a metal device that children wear inside the mouth to help their teeth grow straight:
My daughter has to wear a brace on her teeth.
3 (braces) (BrE) (AmE suspenders) [pl.] straps for holding trousers/pants up. They are fastened to the top of the trousers/pants at the front and back and passed over the shoulders:
a pair of braces
4 [C,usually pl.] (AmE) = CALLIPER
5 [C] either of the two marks, , used to show that the words, etc. between them are connected
compareBRACKET
6 [C] (plural brace) a pair of birds or animals that have been killed in hunting:
two brace of partridge(s) * He scored a brace of goals.
IDIOMS see BELTn.
Part of speech: verb
1 ~ sb / yourself (for sth) to prepare sb/yourself for sth difficult or unpleasant that is going to happen:
[VN] UN troops are braced for more violence. * They are bracing themselves for a long legal battle. [also VNtoinf]
2 [VN] ~ sth / yourself (against sth) to press your body or part of your body firmly against sth in order to stop yourself from falling:
They braced themselves against the wind.
3 [VN] to tighten the muscles in your body or part of your body before doing sth that is physically difficult:
He stood with his legs and shoulders braced, ready to lift the weights.
4 [VN] (technical) to make sth stronger or more solid by supporting it with sth:
The roof was braced by lengths of timber.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for brace is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is brace a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, brace is tagged as noun.
Does brace appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — brace appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
