noun

bracket

BRA-kiht

noun

A support fixed to a wall or frame that holds up a shelf or other object.

"He screwed a metal bracket into the wall to hold the TV."

"The bookshelf rests on two sturdy brackets."

One of a pair of punctuation marks — such as ( ) or [ ] — used to enclose extra information or set apart a section of text or a mathematical expression.

"She added a clarifying note in brackets."

"Square brackets are often used to insert an editor's comment into a quotation."

A category or range that something falls into, especially for income, age, or a tournament.

"Her salary put her in a higher tax bracket this year."

"The team advanced to the next round of the tournament bracket."

verb

To group things together as belonging to the same category.

"Critics tend to bracket the two novels together, though they're quite different."

How to Use Bracket

Learner’s notes

In plain EnglishA bracket can be a physical support, a punctuation mark used in pairs, or a category/range something is grouped into (like a tax bracket or tournament bracket).

Common mistake

In American English "parenthesis" usually means the curved ( ) mark, while "bracket" often refers to the square [ ] mark — in British English, "bracket" more commonly covers the curved ( ) mark too.

UK vs US

British English speakers often call ( ) "brackets"; American English speakers usually call these "parentheses" and reserve "brackets" for [ ].

Common pairings

tax bracket in brackets wall bracket age bracket

Word Forms

bracketed past tense, brackets plural, brackets singular

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Fill the Gap

Can you complete this real example?

He screwed a metal _____ into the wall to hold the TV.

Etymology

From an older word for the fly-opening on a pair of breeches, ultimately from Latin braca ("trousers") — the shape of the punctuation mark was compared to that opening.

Synonyms

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parentheses parens

Rhymes for bracket

jacket racket packet straitjacket

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