Other forms: braces, bracing, braced
To brace yourself is to prepare for something unpleasant. Brace yourself, brace for impact, braced for bad news.
It comes from physically stiffening the body against a shock, and both senses are alive: brace your feet against the wall, brace for impact. A brace is also a support — a neck brace, a roof brace — and in British English braces are what hold trousers up, called suspenders in America. A dental brace straightens teeth. And a brace is a pair, chiefly of game birds or of goals in football.
1verbbraceTo prepare yourself for something unpleasant.
“The whole department braced for the announcement.”
2nounsupportA support that holds something firm.
“He wore a neck brace for about six weeks.”
3nounpairA pair.
“He scored a brace in the second half.”
brace is a support or preparation.
Old French brace meant the two arms, from Latin bracchia. A brace was originally a measure of the arms' span, then anything that holds by embracing — which is why embrace and bracelet are relatives.
Proto-Indo-European
*mreǵʰ-
Latin
bracchia
Old French
brace — arm
Middle English
brace
English, today
brace
Built from
From Middle English brace, from Old French brace (“arm”), from Latin bracchia, the nominative and accusative plural of bracchium (“arm”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA