brotherly
adjective · adverb
Simple meaning
Like male siblings, or showing kindness like them.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
bruhtherleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbɹʌðɚli
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Of or characteristic of brothers.
“He offered brotherly advice when I struggled at my new school.”
adverb
In the manner of a brother, as a brother, as brothers.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of or characteristic of brothers.
Used this way, brotherly is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“He offered brotherly advice when I struggled at my new school.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A male with the same parents as someone else.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The kinship relation between a male offspring and the siblings.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A kindly and lenient attitude toward people.
The largest city in Pennsylvania.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.