brachet, a small hunting-dog. Morte Arthur, leaf 52, back, 22; bk. iii, c. 5. F. ‘brachet, a kind of little hound’ (Cotgr.).
brachygraphy, shorthand, stenography. B. Jonson, Paris Anniversary (Fencer); Webster, Devil’s Law-case, iv. 2 (Sanitonella). Gk. βραχυγραφία.
brack, salt water. Only in Drayton, Pol. xxv. 50; Agincourt, 185 (NED.). Du. brak, briny, brackish.
brack, a breach, fracture, Oxford City Records, 387; ‘Breche, a brack or breach in a wall’, Cotgrave; a flaw, fault, ‘A brack, vitium’, Coles, Dict. (1679); Digby, On the Soul, Dedic. (Johnson); a flaw in cloth, Lyly, Euphues (ed. Arber, 33); Chapman, tr. of Odyssey, xvii. 249; a rupture, a quarrel, Chapman, Byron’s Conspiracy, v. 1 (Byron).
brag, brisk, lively. B. Jonson, Tale of a Tub, i. 2. 11; ‘the bragge lambs’, G. Fletcher, Christ’s Victory, i (NED.).
braid, a sudden or brisk movement. Ferrex and Porrex, iv. 2 (Marcella). ME. brayd: ‘She (Dido) walketh, walweth, maketh many a brayd’ (Chaucer, Leg. G. W., 1166); OE. bregdan, to move suddenly to and fro.
braid, a sudden outburst of passion, anger. Warner, Alb. England, bk. vii, ch. 37, st. 105; a sudden assault, Golding, Metam., xiii. 240; an adroit turn, trick, deception, Greene, Radagon in Dianam, 62 (ed. Dyce, 302); (?) deceitful, All’s Well, iv. 2. 73.
braided; braided ware, goods that have changed colour, tarnished, faded. Marston, Scourge Villainie, Sat. v. 73 (cp. Bailey’s Dict., 1721; see NED.).
brail, in hawking, to confine a hawk’s wings by means of a brail, or soft leather girdle; ‘They brail and hud us’ [confine and hood us], Tomkis, Albumazar, ii. 9 (Flavia). OF. brail, braiel, a girdle. Med. L. bracale, deriv. of bracae, breeches (Ducange).
brake, a powerful bit for horses. B. Jonson, Sil. Woman, iv. 2 (Cent.).