"Brontë" meaning in English

See Brontë in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proper name

IPA: /ˈbɹɒn.ti/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˈbɹɑn.ti/ [General-American] Forms: Brontës [plural]
Rhymes: -ɒnti Etymology: Used by Patrick Brontë (1777–1861) as a rendering of Brunty, Prunty, an Anglicization of the Irish Ó Proinntigh (“descendant of a person named Proinnteach (“Generous”)”), with the diaeresis over the terminal ⟨e⟩ to indicate that the name has two syllables. He first registered in 1802 at St John’s College, Cambridge, as Branty or Brunty, later Brontë, and formally changed the spelling in adult life. Multiple theories exist to account for the change, including that he may have wished to hide his humble origins. As he would have been familiar with classical Greek as a man of letters, he may have chosen the name after Ancient Greek βροντή (brontḗ, “thunder”). One view, which biographer Clement Shorter proposed in 1896, is that he adapted his name to associate himself with Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, who was also Duke of Bronte (itself also of same Greek origin). One might also find evidence for this theory in his desire to associate himself with the Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley) in his form of dress. Etymology templates: {{der|en|ga|Ó Proinntigh|t=descendant of a person named <i class="Latn mention" lang="ga">Proinnteach</i> (“Generous”)}} Irish Ó Proinntigh (“descendant of a person named Proinnteach (“Generous”)”), {{der|en|grc|βροντή|t=thunder}} Ancient Greek βροντή (brontḗ, “thunder”) Head templates: {{en-proper noun|+}} Brontë (plural Brontës)
  1. An extinct surname from Irish, borne by a 19th-century literary family.
    Sense id: en-Brontë-en-name-86d8kb6k Categories (other): English surnames, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 45 55 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 48 52 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 47 53
  2. A male given name transferred from the surname.
    Sense id: en-Brontë-en-name-Vj3AlNl- Categories (other): English given names, English male given names, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 45 55 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 48 52 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 47 53
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Derived forms: Brontëan, Brontësque

Inflected forms

{
  "derived": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "Brontëan"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "Brontësque"
    }
  ],
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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ga",
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      },
      "expansion": "Irish Ó Proinntigh (“descendant of a person named Proinnteach (“Generous”)”)",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "grc",
        "3": "βροντή",
        "t": "thunder"
      },
      "expansion": "Ancient Greek βροντή (brontḗ, “thunder”)",
      "name": "der"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Used by Patrick Brontë (1777–1861) as a rendering of Brunty, Prunty, an Anglicization of the Irish Ó Proinntigh (“descendant of a person named Proinnteach (“Generous”)”), with the diaeresis over the terminal ⟨e⟩ to indicate that the name has two syllables.\nHe first registered in 1802 at St John’s College, Cambridge, as Branty or Brunty, later Brontë, and formally changed the spelling in adult life. Multiple theories exist to account for the change, including that he may have wished to hide his humble origins. As he would have been familiar with classical Greek as a man of letters, he may have chosen the name after Ancient Greek βροντή (brontḗ, “thunder”). One view, which biographer Clement Shorter proposed in 1896, is that he adapted his name to associate himself with Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, who was also Duke of Bronte (itself also of same Greek origin). One might also find evidence for this theory in his desire to associate himself with the Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley) in his form of dress.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Brontës",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "+"
      },
      "expansion": "Brontë (plural Brontës)",
      "name": "en-proper noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenations": [
    {
      "parts": [
        "Bron",
        "të"
      ]
    }
  ],
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "name",
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          "ref": "2024 September 26, Mark Brown, “Brontë sisters finally get their dots as names corrected at Westminster Abbey”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 05 Oct 2024:",
          "text": "An 85-year injustice has been rectified at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey with the corrected spelling of one of the greatest of all literary names. Reader, it is finally Brontë, not Bronte. An amended memorial to Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë was unveiled on Thursday with added diaereses (two dots) that ensure people pronounce it with two syllables. As if it rhymed with Monty, not font. The memorial was installed in 1939 and, for whatever reason, came without the diaereses that the Brontës used.",
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      "glosses": [
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      "links": [
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  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈbɹɒn.ti/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈbɹɑn.ti/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "rhymes": "-ɒnti"
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  ],
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    "Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson",
    "Patrick Brontë",
    "St John’s College, Cambridge"
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    "English terms spelled with ◌̈",
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    "Pages with entries",
    "Rhymes:English/ɒnti",
    "Rhymes:English/ɒnti/2 syllables"
  ],
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    },
    {
      "word": "Brontësque"
    }
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        "3": "Ó Proinntigh",
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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Brontës",
      "tags": [
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      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "+"
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      "expansion": "Brontë (plural Brontës)",
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          "text": "An 85-year injustice has been rectified at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey with the corrected spelling of one of the greatest of all literary names. Reader, it is finally Brontë, not Bronte. An amended memorial to Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë was unveiled on Thursday with added diaereses (two dots) that ensure people pronounce it with two syllables. As if it rhymed with Monty, not font. The memorial was installed in 1939 and, for whatever reason, came without the diaereses that the Brontës used.",
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      "glosses": [
        "An extinct surname from Irish, borne by a 19th-century literary family."
      ],
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      ],
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      "ipa": "/ˈbɹɒn.ti/",
      "tags": [
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      "ipa": "/ˈbɹɑn.ti/",
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    "Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson",
    "Patrick Brontë",
    "St John’s College, Cambridge"
  ],
  "word": "Brontë"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-01-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-01-01 using wiktextract (96027d6 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.