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A secondary meaning of Old English ealu, the ancestor of Modern English ale, was “feast, banquet,” at which the drinking of ale was a prominent activity. There were a number of these feasts and banquets that survived into the 19th century, but the oldest and best-established was the bride-ale, or wedding feast, attested in Old English as brydealu. In Middle English the ale half of the word had lost its stress and was associated with the noun suffix –al (as in funeral) and the adjective suffix (as in parental). By the 18^th^ century, bridal was perceived primarily as an adjective, as it is today.
Examples of bridal in a Sentence
Jennifer Day, Chicago Tribune, 1 Jan. 2026
Shmidman said that Wang — the person, bridal and fashion — is really powerful.
—Lisa Lockwood, Footwear News, 10 Nov. 2025
Rachel Raposas, PEOPLE, 5 Jan. 2026
Inside the glamorous walls of Kleinfeld Bridal — one of the world's bougiest bridal salons — a crew of more than 250 experts pull out all the stops to measure up to the bride's fairy-tale fantasies.
—Ilana Gordon, Entertainment Weekly, 30 Dec. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Bridal.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bridal. Accessed 7 Jan. 2026.
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