A short letter, brief document, or in music, a note that is half the length of a semibreve.
From Latin 'brevis' meaning 'short,' the same root that gives us words like 'brief,' 'brevity,' and 'abbreviate'; historically used to denote documents that were concise.
In medieval times, writing materials were expensive, so a 'brev' or brief letter was literally short to save on parchment—this is why 'brevis' comes to mean quick and concise across so many languages.
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