[Ads-l] Antedating of bro and bruh

[Jesse Sheidlower]

OED (which IMO did a particularly excellent job dealing with this extremely complicated group of terms) also does have separate entries for _bra_ (as linked below) and _bruh_, and others.

For _bruh_, OED has 1894 for the use as a title before a man's name, as in "Bruh Rabbit" (the usual pronunciation of "Brer Rabbit"), and 1967 as a form of address to a man, which is what I think Frank is asking about.

For _bra(h)_ OED has this as "originally _Caribbean_" as a form of address, from 1869, but also the useful note "In North America the word was popularized by surfers who adopted it from Hawaiian English; Hawaiian use of _bra_ for ‘brother’ is recorded from 1965 to 1970 in _Dict. Amer. Regional Eng._ (1985) vol. I. 391/2." It is this use that you're probably hearing in the 1991 _Point Break_ (e.g. in these clips: https://clip.cafe/point-break-1991/lose-something-bro-s1/ and https://clip.cafe/point-break-1991/tyler-wait/ ); it's frequent there.

Jesse Sheidlower

On Sun, Sep 13, 2026 at 10:23:27AM +0000, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
> OED documents many senses of "bro," extending back to the 16th century.  Probably the sense you are interested in is the following:
> 
> II.3.b.
> 1918–
> Used as a familiar form of address to a man. Cf. brother n. A.II.4c<https://www.oed.com/dictionary/brother_n?tab=meaning_and_use#13043410>, bra n.1 1a<https://www.oed.com/dictionary/bra_n1?tab=meaning_and_use#276658153>.
> 
>   1.
> 1918
> Bro', I can't go, I sick bad, I can't walk at all.
> E. C. Parsons, Folk-Tales of Andros Island, Bahamas xix. 30
> 
> I have not antedated this or any of the other senses, and I am not sure how I would go about researching them.
> 
> Fred Shapiro
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org