a close male friend or a brother; informal way to address someone, especially a friend.
Shortened form of 'brother' that became popular in the 1960s as slang, originally within African American communities and later spreading throughout American English. It represents the casual, friendly tone of informal speech.
The word 'bro' is a perfect example of how language shortcuts become words—we literally just chopped off the beginning of 'brother' and made it cool, and now it's so common that most people don't even think about its origin.
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