brank meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

brank

noun

CA, US /ˈbɹeɪ̯ŋk/ · /ˈbɹæŋk/

Etymology Compare Scottish Gaelic brangus, brangas (“a sort of pillory”), Irish brancas (“halter”), or Dutch pranger (“fetter”).

Plural normally A metal bridle formerly used as a torture device to hold the head of a scold and restrain the tongue.

Scotland, UK, Dialectal, Obsolete, Plural normally A sort of bridle with wooden side pieces.

Your armour gude ye mauna shaw, / Nor yet appear like men o' weir; / As country lads be a' array'd, / Wi' branks and brecham on each mare.1802, “Jock o’ the Side”, in Walter Scott, editor, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border: […], volume I, Kelso, Roxburghshire: […] James Ballantyne, for T[homas] Cadell Jun. and W[illiam] Davies, […]; and sold by Manners and Miller, and A[rchibald] Constable, […], →OCLC, 1st part (Historical Ballads), page 158:

verb

Etymology Compare Scottish Gaelic brangus, brangas (“a sort of pillory”), Irish brancas (“halter”), or Dutch pranger (“fetter”).

To put someone in the branks.

Scotland, UK, Dialectal To hold up and toss the head; applied to horses as spurning the bit.

Scotland To prance; to caper.

Donald came branking down the brae Wi' twenty thousand men.1811, Anne MacVicar Grant, Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland:

noun

Etymology Probably of Celtic origin; compare Latin brance, brace, the Gallic name of a particularly white kind of corn.

UK, Dialectal Buckwheat.

One - third of brank-ground , or mixed with any other kind of grain or roots, is as large a proportion as can be given with safety1842, William Blackwood, The Quarterly Journal of Agriculture:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.