- breadth
- breadth: [16] Breadth was formed in the 16th century by adding the suffix -th (as in length) to the already existing noun brede ‘breadth’. This was an ancient formation, directly derived in prehistoric Germanic times from *braid-, the stem of broad. It came into Old English as brǣdu.
=> broad - breadth (n.)
- 1520s, alteration of brede "breadth," from Old English brædu "breadth, width, extent," from bræd; probably by analogy of long/length.