brazil, brasell, a hard wood which yields a red dye. Davenant, The Wits, i. 1. 9; Ascham, Toxophilus (Arber, 133). In popular use in the Yorksh. phrase, ‘As hard as brazzil’, see EDD. (s.v. Brazil, sb.1). Port. and Span. brasil. The country in S. America is named from this wood (NED.).
break: phr. to break one’s day, to fail to make a payment on the day appointed. Heywood, Eng. Traveller, iii. 1 (Prud.).
break up, to break open; to open a letter. 1 Hen. VI, i. 3. 13; Merch. Ven. ii. 4. 10. Also, to carve, L. L. L. iv. 1. 56.
breast, the source of the voice, the voice in singing. Twelfth Nt. ii. 3. 20; Fletcher, Pilgrim, iii. 6 (Fool); G. Herbert, The Temper, p. 47.
breathe: phr. to breathe a vein, to open a vein by lancing it. Dryden, Oliver Cromwell, st. 12; Georgics, iii. 700; Palamon, iii. 755.
breathely, worthless. Tusser, Husbandry, § 33. 36. Cp. ME. brethel(l, a worthless fellow (York Plays, xxvi. 179). See NED.
breck, a breach, gap. Tusser, Husbandry, § 16. 16 (p. 40). A north-country word (EDD.). ME. brekke (Chaucer, Bk. Duch., 940).
breme, fierce, stormy; ‘Breme winter’, Spenser, Shep. Kal., Feb., 42; ‘Froid, cold, breame, chill’, Cotgrave; Drayton, Heroic. Epist., xvi. 8. ME. breme (Lydgate, Chron. Troy, ii. 16). Still in use in the north country (EDD.). Cp. OE. brēman, to rage: broeman ‘fervere’, in Preface Lind. Matthew (ed. Skeat, p. 5, l. 5).
breme. Of reports, loudly prevalent; ‘In their talke most breeme Was then Achilles victorie’, Golding, Met. xii. 280. OE. brēme, famous, celebrated.
brended, brindled. B. Jonson, Tale of a Tub, ii. 1 (Puppy). See [brinded].