O Israel, O household of the Lord,
O Abraham’s brats, O brood of blessed seed,
O chosen sheep that loved the Lord indeed.
Gascoigne, De Profundis.
Take heed how thou layest the bane for the rats,
For poisoning thy servant, thyself, and thy brats.
Tusser, Points of Good Husbandry.
| Brave, | } |
| Bravery. |
The ultimate derivation of ‘brave’ is altogether uncertain (see N.E.D.); we obtained it in the fifteenth century, the Germans in the seventeenth, (Grimm [s. v. ‘brav’] says during the Thirty Years’ War,) from one or other of the Romance languages, probably from the It. bravo. I do not very clearly trace by what steps it obtained the meaning of showy, gaudy, rich, which once it so frequently had, in addition to that meaning which it still retains.
The habit also and attire of his body, manly and soldier-like, not brave nor tricked up daintily and delicately, much adorned and set him out.—Plutarch, Lives, 695.