Brace facts for kids

A brace or bracing is something that supports, strengthens, or holds things together. It can also mean to get ready for something, like a sudden impact. The word "brace" has many different uses, from medical devices to parts of buildings and tools.

Medical Braces: Helping Your Body

Medical braces are special devices that help support or protect parts of your body. They can help you move better or keep a body part still while it heals.

Orthopaedic Braces: Support for Bones and Joints

An orthopaedic brace is a device used to help with movement or to keep a body part from moving too much.

Back Braces: Keeping Your Spine Straight

A Back brace helps limit how much your spine can move. Some types, like the Milwaukee brace and Boston brace, are used to treat spinal curves, such as scoliosis. They help guide the spine into a straighter position as you grow.

Neck Braces: Supporting Your Neck

A Cervical collar, also called a neck brace, is used to keep your neck from moving. This is often needed after an injury to help your neck heal safely.

Dental Braces: Straightening Your Teeth

Dental braces are special devices that dentists use to slowly move and straighten your teeth. They can fix problems like crooked teeth or a bad bite, giving you a healthier smile.

Tools and Construction: Making Things Stronger

In building and making things, a brace is often used to add strength or stability.

Brace Tools: For Drilling and Tightening

A Brace (tool) is a hand tool used for drilling holes. It's also known as a bit brace. A Wheel brace, or lug wrench, is used to remove the nuts or bolts that hold wheels onto a vehicle.

Bracing in Buildings and Structures

Bracing is a way to make structures stronger and more stable.

Timber Framing: Old Ways to Build

In timber framing, which is an old way of building with large wooden beams, braces are used as reinforcements. They help hold the heavy wooden parts together.

Aircraft Bracing: Keeping Planes Stiff

Aircraft bracing uses struts and wires to make the airplane's frame stiff and strong. This helps the plane stay together and fly safely.

Cross Bracing: Diagonal Support

Cross bracing is a system that uses diagonal supports that cross each other. This is a very strong way to reinforce buildings and other structures, helping them stand firm against forces like wind or earthquakes. A Cross brace is a similar idea, like a cross-beam that connects arches to add stiffness, often seen in mining tunnels.

Guy-wires: Holding Tall Structures Up

A Guy-wire is a strong cable that is pulled tight to add stability to a tall, free-standing structure, like an antenna tower or a tent pole.

Posture: How We Stand and Sit

The word "brace" can also describe how you hold your body.

Brace Position: Getting Ready for a Crash

The Brace position is a specific body stance used to prepare for a crash, especially in airplanes. It helps protect people from serious injuries during a sudden impact.

Military Brace: A Formal Stance

The Military brace is a formal body posture often taught in military schools. It involves standing very straight with shoulders back, showing discipline and readiness.

Music: Connecting and Strengthening

In music, "brace" can refer to parts of instruments or musical notation.

Brace in Music Notation

A brace (music) is a symbol that connects two or more musical staves (the lines where notes are written) together. This shows that the music on those staves should be played at the same time, often by one instrument like a piano.

Guitar Bracing: Inside a Guitar

Guitar bracing refers to the internal wooden supports inside a classical or acoustic guitar. These braces help strengthen the guitar's top and back, shaping its sound and keeping it from warping.

Sports: Scoring Twice

In some sports, a "brace" means that a player has scored two goals or points in a single game. It's like a mini Hat-trick, which is when a player scores three times.

Other Meanings of Brace

Brace (Armor): Protecting Your Arm

A Brace (armor) is a shorter name for a vambrace, which is a piece of armor worn to protect the forearm.

Braces (Clothing): Holding Up Trousers

Braces (clothing) are elastic fabric straps used to hold up trousers. In American English, these are usually called suspenders.

Braces (Punctuation): Curly Symbols

Braces (punctuation) are the curly symbols that look like "{" and "}". They are also called "curly brackets" and are often used in computer programming languages to group code together.

"Braces" (Care Bears Episode)

"Braces" is the name of an episode from the animated TV show Care Bears.

See also

• Bracer
• Bracket (disambiguation)