Etymology From Middle English branche, braunche, bronche, from Old French branche, branke, from Late Latin branca (“footprint”, later also “paw, claw”) (whence Middle High German pranke, German Pranke (“paw”)), of unknown origin. Perhaps of Celtic origin, from a hypothetical Gaulish *vranca, from Proto-Indo-European *wrónk-eh₂. If so, then Indo-European cognates include Old Norse rá, vró (“angle, corner”), and possibly Lithuanian rankà (“hand”), Old Church Slavonic рѫка (rǫka, “hand”), Albanian rangë (“yardwork”). The verb is from Middle English braunchen, from the noun.
The woody part of a tree arising from the trunk and usually dividing.
Selfe loue, to him ſelf tender, to the reſt tough, / Is, of iuſt iuſtice, neither roote, braunce, nor bough. / Loue (namely ſelfe loue) corruptibly growyng, / Is cheefe lodeſter of lets, in iuſtice ſhowing.1556, John Heywood, chapter 7, in The Spider and the Flie. […], London: […] Tho[mas] Powell, →OCLC; republished as A[dolphus] W[illiam] Ward, editor, The Spider and the Flie. […] (Publications of the Spenser Society, New Series; 6), Manchester: […] [Charles E. Simms] for the Spenser Society, 1894, →OCLC, page 50:
And they played softly in the Aeolian mode a music that was like the wailing of wind through bare branches on a moonless night, and the Red Foliot leaned forth from his high seat and recited this lamentation: […]1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 31:
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Any of the parts of something that divides like the branch of a tree.
the branch of an antler, a chandelier, or a railway
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Southern US A creek or stream which flows into a larger river.
branch water
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Geometry, Mathematics, Sciences One of the portions of a curve that extends outwards to an indefinitely great distance.
the branches of a hyperbola
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A location of an organization with several locations.
Our main branch is downtown, and we have branches in all major suburbs.
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A line of family descent, in distinction from some other line or lines from the same stock; any descendant in such a line.
the English branch of a family
his father, a younger branch of the ancient stock1609, Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall, London: […] S[imon] S[tafford] for Iohn Iaggard, […], →OCLC:
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The gens could admit a new cognomen either for an individual or for a whole branch […]1945, E[lizabeth] G[idley] Withycombe, “Introduction”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page xv:
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Mormonism A local congregation of the LDS Church that is not large enough to form a ward; see Wikipedia article on ward in LDS church.
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An area in business or of knowledge, research.
We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.2012 January 23, Robert L. Dorit, “Rereading Darwin”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 14 Nov 2012, page 23:
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Nautical, Transport A certificate given by Trinity House to a pilot qualified to take navigational control of a ship in British waters.
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Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A sequence of code that is conditionally executed.
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Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A group of related files in a source control system, including for example source code, build scripts, and media such as images.
Etymology From Middle English branche, braunche, bronche, from Old French branche, branke, from Late Latin branca (“footprint”, later also “paw, claw”) (whence Middle High German pranke, German Pranke (“paw”)), of unknown origin. Perhaps of Celtic origin, from a hypothetical Gaulish *vranca, from Proto-Indo-European *wrónk-eh₂. If so, then Indo-European cognates include Old Norse rá, vró (“angle, corner”), and possibly Lithuanian rankà (“hand”), Old Church Slavonic рѫка (rǫka, “hand”), Albanian rangë (“yardwork”). The verb is from Middle English braunchen, from the noun.
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To arise from the trunk or a larger branch of a tree.
2
To produce branches.
The tree throve and branched so heavily that the windows of Lower West and the Doll's Flat were darkened.1944, Emily Carr, “Life Loves Living”, in The House of All Sorts:
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Ambitransitive To (cause to) divide into separate parts or subdivisions.
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Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences To jump to a different location in a program, especially as the result of a conditional statement.
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To strip of branches.
They cut down a young pear-tree, branch it, and carry it home.1890, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 2, page 55:
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Colloquial To discipline (a union member) at a branch meeting.
His staff were 'not journalists, but Communists', he maintained. Nonetheless, in 1948 his vigorous editorship took the paper's circulation to 120,000 a day. The following year, he was 'branched' by the National Union of Journalists for an intemperate attack on Fleet Street.2003, Paul Routledge, The Bumper Book of British Lefties, page 199: