Dictionary

bris en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /bɹɪs/ (UK, US)

Etymology

Borrowed from Yiddish ברית (bris), from Hebrew בְּרִית (bərîṯ, “covenant”).

Meanings

1. (Judaism) Ritual male circumcision; the ceremony in which this is performed.
   • The night before the bris, he invited nine of his little buddies to come and say kerias shema around the baby's bassinet. Mommy and Daddy, who flew in for the bris, were so touched, they kept dabbing their eyes and coughing. 1993, Miriam Rose, Miriam Zakon, “The Baker Family Circus”, in Baker's Dozen, volume 4, Omnibus, page 129:
   • However, if the baby is born on a Wednesday night, then the bris would occur on the following Thursday morning because Jewish days begin at sundown, and the bris is tradionally performed during the day. (Note that the Talmud (see Chapter 3) states if the baby's health is in question, then the bris must be postponed.) 2013, Ted Falcon, David Blatner, Judaism For Dummies, 2nd edition, page 109:
   • Although indigenous visual documentation of the bris was, until the advent of video, limited and often oblique, the ceremony is a longstanding fixture of Christian art. 2009, Jeffrey Shandler, Jews, God, and Videotape: Religion and Media in America, page 155:

Forms

Deriveds

bris periah

Synonyms

brit milah (circumcision) · bris milah (circumcision)

Translations (7)

lad ברית (ritual male circumcision) · lad brit (ritual male circumcision) · pl brit mila (ritual male circumcision) · it brit milà (ritual male circumcision) · pl bris (ritual male circumcision) · yi ברית (ritual male circumcision) · he בְּרִית (ritual male circumcision)