Meaning & use
brill
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Meanings
adjectivecomparableinformalBritishold-fashioned
Very good or enjoyable, as an enthusiastic way of showing approval.
Grammar: Used after a verb or as a short exclamation: the film was brill; Brill!
Patterns
- be brill
- be brill at something
That concert was absolutely brill; I'd go again tomorrow.
You got the job? Brill!
She's brill at drawing, so she designed the poster.
nouncountablebiology
A flat sea fish related to the turbot, found around Europe and eaten as food.
Grammar: Countable; the plural is the same as the singular or brills.
Patterns
- a brill fillet
The restaurant served grilled brill with lemon butter.
Fishermen at the harbor landed a large brill this morning.
Brill has a delicate flavor and is often baked whole.
Word forms
| plural | brill |
|---|---|
| plural | brills |
Common combinations
- absolutely brill
- The new teacher is absolutely brill.
- brill idea
- A picnic by the river is a brill idea.
- brill news
- We got the tickets, which is brill news.
- brill at
- He's brill at fixing bikes.
- grilled brill
- The fishmonger recommended grilled brill for dinner.
Synonyms and how they differ
- brilliant
- Brilliant is the full word, and it also works in formal writing and for intelligence or light, whereas brill is only a casual, clipped form.
- great
- Great is common worldwide and sounds neutral, while brill is distinctly British and dated.
- fab
- Fab is a similar clipped British word, often with a 1960s flavor, and sounds more playful.
- cracking
- Cracking is another British informal word of approval and sounds more old-fashioned still.
Opposites
Word family
- brilliant adjective
- the full form: extremely bright, clever or excellent
- brilliance noun
- great brightness or great talent
- brilliantly adverb
- in an excellent or very bright way
Commonly confused: brill or brilliant?
brill vs brilliant
Brilliant also means extremely clever or very bright and is fine in formal writing, whereas brill is only a casual British slang shortening.
Practice
That concert was absolutely ___! I'd go again tomorrow.
Choose one answer.
Brill is informal British slang for excellent. Brisk, brine and brittle are real words but do not express enjoyment.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “brill”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.