• enPR: brāv, IPA: /bɹeɪv/

From Middle French brave, borrowed from Italian bravo, itself of uncertain origin (see there).

brave (comparative braver, superlative bravest)

1. Strong in the face of fear; courageous.

   Synonyms: bold, daring, doughty, orped, resilient, stalwart

   Antonyms: cowardly, fearful, mean, weak

   • 1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 21, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC ↗:

     Do not fret, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me through the horrible task. If you only knew what an effort it is to me to tell of this fearful thing at all, you would understand how much I need your help.

   • 1987, Michael Grumley, The Last Diary:

     […] he has been so brave, giving it all a dignity.

2. (obsolete) Having any sort of superiority or excellence.
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC ↗; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene v ↗:

     Is it not paſſing braue to be a King,
     And ride in triumph through Perſepolis?

   • 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Plantations”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC ↗:

     Iron is a brave commodity where wood aboundeth.

   • 18 February 1666, Samuel Pepys, diary entry:

     It being a brave day, I walked to Whitehall.

3. Making a fine show or display.
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC ↗; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii ↗:

     Their plumed helmes are wrought with beaten golde,
     Their ſwords enameld, and about their neckes
     Hangs maſſie chaines of golde downe to the waſte,
     In euery part exceding braue and rich.

   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene iv]:

     Wear my dagger with the braver grace.

   • 1611, John Cooke, Greene's Tu Quoque:

     For I have gold, and therefore will be brave. / In silks I'll rattle it of every color.

   • 1867, Ralph Waldo Emerson, May-Day:

     Frog and lizard in holiday coats / And turtle brave in his golden spots.

   • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC ↗:

     So this was my future home, I thought! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein. Backed by towering hills, […] a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

4. (UK, euphemism) Foolish or unwise.

   Synonyms: courageous

• (courageous) See also Thesaurus:brave

• bravo
• bravura

• French: courageux
• German: tapfer, mutig
• Italian: coraggioso, ardito, baldo, audace, valoroso, impavido
• Portuguese: bravo, valente, corajoso, bravio
• Russian: хра́брый
• Spanish: valiente, valeroso, corajudo

• Russian: дивный

brave (plural braves)

1. (dated) A Native American warrior.
2. (obsolete) A man daring beyond discretion; a bully.
   • 1674 (date written), John Dryden, The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man: An Opera. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1677, →OCLC ↗, Act I, page 6 ↗:

     Hot Braves, like thee, may fight; but know not well / To manage this, the laſt great Stake of Hell.

   • 1870–1871 (date written), Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter LVII, in Roughing It, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company [et al.], published 1872, →OCLC ↗, pages 414–415 ↗:

     In no other land, in modern times, have towns so absolutely died and disappeared, as in the old mining regions of California. […] For, observe, it was an assemblage of two hundred thousand young men—not simpering, dainty, kid-gloved weaklings, but stalwart, muscular, dauntless young braves, brimful of push and energy, and royally endowed with every attribute that goes to make up a peerless and magnificent manhood—the very pick and choice of the world's glorious ones.

3. (obsolete) A challenge; a defiance; bravado.
   • c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, scene i]:

     Demetrius, thou dost overween in all; / And so in this, to bear me down with braves.

• German: Krieger
• Russian: индейский воин

From Middle French braver, from brave.

brave (braves, present participle braving; simple past and past participle braved)

1. (transitive) To encounter with courage and fortitude, to defy, to provoke.
   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     For Cassius is aweary of the world;
     Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother;
     Checked like a bondman; all his faults observed,
     Set in a notebook, learned, and conned by rote,
     To cast into my teeth.

   • 1665 (first performance), John Dryden, The Indian Emperour, or, The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. […], London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for H[enry] Herringman […], published 1667, →OCLC ↗, (please specify the page):

     The ills of Love, not those of Fate, I fear,
     These I can brave, but those I cannot bear […]

   • 1773, A Farmer, Rivington's New-York Gazetteer, Number 53, December 2

     […] but they [Parliament] never will be braved into it.

   After braving tricks on the high-dive, he braved a jump off the first diving platform.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To adorn; to make fine or showy.
   • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     Face not me. Thou hast braved many men; brave
     not me. I will neither be faced nor braved.

     addressed to a tailor; first use in sense of "adorn", second and third uses in sense of "confront"

• bravado
• bravery

• German: trotzen

1. Surname.
2. CDP in Greene County, Pennsylvania.