brach
/bɹæt͡ʃ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.05 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Originally, a synonym of scent hound (“a hunting dog that tracks prey using its sense of smell rather than by its vision”); later, any female hound; a bitch hound.
Archaic
name
A surname.
name
A commune in Gironde department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France.
Example Sentences
- "In ſome countreys no woman is ſo honourable as she that hath to doo with moſt men, and can give the luſtieſt ſtriker oddes by 25 times in one night, as Meſſalina did; and ſo it is with this his bratche, or bitch-foxe."
- "Truth is a dog that muſt to kenell, hee muſt be vvhipt out, vvhen Ladie oth'e [or the] brach may ſtand by the fire and ſtinke."
- "[A]uant you curs, / Be thy mouth, or blacke, or vvhite, tooth that poyſons if it bite, / Maſtife, grayhoũd [grayhound], mungril, grim-hoũd or ſpaniel, brach or him, / Bobtaile tike, or trũdletaile [trundletail], Tom vvill make them vveep & vvaile, […]"
- "[W]hen your Bratch is neere vvhelping, or hath vvhelpe; you ſhall ſeperate her from other Hounds, and haue a priuate Kennell for her, […] for vvhere a Bratch firſt vvhelpeth her litter, if they be remoued, ſhee vvil not leaue carrying her vvhelps vp and dovvne, til ſhee haue found the ſame place againe, or ſome other perhaps more vnfit then the former, […]"
- "A ſow pigge by chance ſucked a Brach, and vvhen ſhe vvas grovvne, vvould miraculouſly hunt all manner of Deere, and that as vvell or rather better then any ordinary hound."
- "So we'll flatter them up, and we'll cocker them up, / Till we turn young brains; / And pamper the brach till we make her a wolf, / And get bit by the legs for our pains."
Etymology
From Late Middle English brache (“hunting dog, especially a small scent hound; female dog, bitch (?); lapdog (?)”), probably a back-formation from Old French brachès, brachez, the plural of brachet (“female scent hound”), a diminutive of brac, from Old High German braccho, bracco, bracko (“scent hound”) (modern German Bracke); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Germanic *brēkijaną (compare Latin fragrō (“to emit a smell”), Middle High German bræhen (“to smell (something); to use the sense of smell; to have a (bad) smell”)), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreHg- (“to have a strong odour, to smell”). cognates * Italian bracco * Medieval Latin bracco * Occitan brac * Spanish braco
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /bɹæt͡ʃ/
- British English: /bɹæt͡ʃ/