| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| bracket |
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| SYLLABICATION: | brack·et |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  br k  t |
| NOUN: | 1a. A simple rigid structure in the shape of an L, one arm of which is fixed to a vertical surface, the other projecting horizontally to support a shelf or other weight. b. A small shelf or shelves supported by such structures. 2. Architecture A decorative or weight-bearing structural unit, two sides of which form a right angle with one arm flush against a wall and the other flush beneath a projecting surface, such as eaves or a bay window. 3. A wall-anchored fixture for gas or electricity. 4a. A square bracket. b. An angle bracket. c. Mathematics See brace (sense 14). 5. Chiefly British One of a pair of parentheses. 6. A classification or grouping, especially within a sequence of numbers or grades, as a category of incomes sharing the same tax rate. 7a. The distance between two impacting shells, the first aimed beyond a target and the second aimed short of it, used to determine the range for artillery fire. b. The shells fired in such a manner. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: brack·et·ed, brack·et·ing, brack·ets
1. To furnish or support with a bracket or brackets. 2. To place within or as if within brackets. 3. To classify or group together. 4. To include or exclude by establishing specific boundaries. 5. To fire beyond and short of (a target) in order to determine artillery range. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Possibly French braguette, codpiece, diminutive of brague, breeches, from Old Provençal braga, from Latin br cae, from Gaulish brca, leg covering.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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