bravo (French)
Where does "bravo" come from?
French bravo! was borrowed from Italian bravo, making it a sibling word of French brave rather than a native development. In Italian, bravo originally meant “good” or “well-behaved,” and its deeper origin is uncertain, though one leading theory connects it to Vulgar Latin *bravus, blending Latin pravus (“crooked, deformed”) with barbarus. As it moved into French, it became the exclamation of praise meaning “well done!” or “hear, hear!”.
Full etymology tree
- bravo (French), 'bravo!, hear, hear!, well said!, well done!'
- borrowed from bravo (Italian), 'good, well-behaved'
- inherited from *bravus (Vulgar Latin)
- compound of prāvus (Latin), 'crooked, deformed'
- inherited from *prāwos (Proto-Italic)
- compound of barbarus (Latin), 'foreign, strange'
- borrowed from βάρβαρος (Ancient Greek), 'non-Greek-speaking, foreign'
- compound of prāvus (Latin), 'crooked, deformed'
- inherited from brau (Provençal)
- inherited from *bragos (Gaulish)
- inherited from *hrawaz (Proto-Germanic), 'raw, uncooked'
- inherited from *krewh₂- (Proto-Indo-European), 'blood outside the body (as of a wound)'
- inherited from *bravus (Latin)
- derived from bravium (Latin), 'prize, reward'
- borrowed from βραβεῖον (Ancient Greek)
- derived from bravium (Latin), 'prize, reward'
- derived from branus (Latin)
- derived from brahaigne (Old French)
- inherited from *bravus (Vulgar Latin)
- borrowed from bravo (Italian), 'good, well-behaved'
Ancestors
- bravo (Italian)
Cognates and doublets
- brave (French)
Updated March 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris