BRB

1. 1
   phraseinitialism

   Initialism of be right back.

   BRB, my food delivery just showed up.

   Her BRB stretched into an hour, and the group moved on without her.

   Note

   A sign-off that promises a return. It is typed as a sentence on its own, usually just before the writer steps away. Kelvin MacKenzie and Chas Newkey-Burden's The Twitter History of the World (2012) gives it to Socrates just before the hemlock, and the joke depends on that promise of coming straight back. When someone describes the absence rather than announcing it, the word becomes the adjective for being away.

2. 2
   adjective

   Away from one's device for the moment, while meaning to come back soon.

   Half the players were BRB when the match timer ran out.

   She's been BRB for twenty minutes, so I doubt she's coming back tonight.

   Similaraway

   Oppositeback

   Note

   Here the sign-off has become a description of someone's status, and it follows a form of be: he's BRB. Strictly speaking, that doubles the verb, since the initialism already contains "be". Nobody hears it that way, though, because the letters now work as a single word meaning "away for a moment." It belongs in chat and texting, alongside the sign-off itself.

3. 3
   nouninitialism

   Initialism of big red button.

   An operator slapped the BRB the second the conveyor jammed.

   The launch console keeps its BRB under a clear safety cover.

   Note

   The red is the point. The button is made large and red so it can be found at once, which suits a control for something of critical importance. The term reaches beyond real hardware to fictional and figurative buttons, so it can name any drastic, single-stroke measure. Written alone, it can be confused with the chat sign-off, and the surrounding text usually settles which one is meant.

4. 4
   nouninitialism

   Initialism of buckling-restrained brace: a structural brace in a building or other structure, designed to allow it to withstand cyclical lateral loadings.

   Engineers specified a BRB at every braced bay of the hospital tower.

   During the retrofit, each old brace was replaced with a BRB to absorb earthquake energy.

   Note

   An engineering solution to a brace that would otherwise buckle. A casing filled with concrete keeps the brace's components separate, so they never act as one, and the brace can keep absorbing energy. Wai-Fah Chen and Lian Duan's Bridge Engineering Handbook (2014) dates the concept to Japan in the early 1970s. Set into a concentric braced frame, the brace forms a BRBF, and the redundant "BRB brace" is common even in technical prose.

5. 5
   nouninitialism

   Initialism of bevelled-rim bowl or bevel-rimmed bowl: a small, undecorated, mass-produced clay bowl, most commonly from the fourth millennium B.C.

   The team cataloged a BRB from almost every room of the Uruk-period building.

   A BRB this rough was shaped quickly, probably in a simple mold.

   Note

   An archaeologist's shorthand, and a practical one. The full name comes in two shapes, bevelled-rim bowl and bevel-rimmed bowl, and the initialism covers both. It names a type of vessel rather than a single find, so it takes the plural easily: a site yields BRBs. The bowl's interest lies in its plainness. Undecorated and mass-produced, it points to pottery made in quantity rather than pottery made with care.

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