brae

See also: bræ and -brae

English

WOTD – 18 October 2019

Etymology

Braes (sense 1) of a river valley in Scotland, United Kingdom

From Middle English bro, bra (“bank of a stream; raised edge of a ditch or pit”),^[1] from Old Norse brá (“eyebrow; eyelash”) (probably in the sense of the brow of a hill), from Proto-Germanic *brēwō (“eyebrow”),^[2][3] from Proto-Indo-European *h₃bʰrúHs (“eyebrow”).

The English word is cognate with Old English brǣw, brēaw (“eyelid”), Old High German brāwa (Middle High German brā, modern German Braue (“eyebrow”)), Old Saxon brāwa, brāha (“eyebrow; eyelash”);^[2] and is a doublet of bree (“(Scotland) brow; forehead; (obsolete or dialectal, Scotland) eyebrow; eyelid”) and brow.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɹeɪ/, (dialectal) /bɹɪə/, /bɹiː/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /bɹeɪ/
• Homophone: bray
• Rhymes: -eɪ, -iː

Noun

brae (plural braes)

1. (Northern England, Scotland) The sloping bank of a river valley.
   • 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter IV, in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 77:

     Was it not Wat the Devil, who drove all the year-old hogs off the braes of Lanthorn-side, in the very recent days of my grandfather's father?

   • 1791, Robert Burns, “Ye Banks, and Braes, and Streams around. Air.—Katharine Ogie.”, in Songs, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, volume IV, Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] James M‘Kie, published 1886, →OCLC, page 77:

     Ye banks, and braes, and ſtreams around / The caſtle of Montgomery, / Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, / Your waters never drumlie!

   • 1881, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Inversnaid”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, →OCLC, stanza 3, page 53:

     Degged with dew, dappled with dew / Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through, / Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern, / And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

   • 1899, “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond”, in Robert Ford, editor, Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland: With Many Old and Familiar Melodies […], Paisley, Renfrewshire, London: Alexander Gardner […], →OCLC, page 161:

     By yon bonnie banks, and by yon bonnie braes, / Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomon', / Where me and my true love were ever wont to gae, / On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomon'.

2. (Northern England, Scotland) Any hillside or slope.
   • 1828 August 1, “A.”, “A Visit to the Covenanters. (Concluded.)”, in The Paisley Magazine, volume I, number 8, Paisley, Renfrewshire: David Dick, →OCLC, page 392:

     You are directed to the particular part of the brae where the Covenanters stationed themselves, (at the time of my visit it was a field of pasture, on which some cows were quietly feeding,) and the eminence behind, [...]

   • 1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN; republished London: Vintage Books, 2015, →ISBN, page 19:

     The party was in a big bungalow with an enormous brae for a garden.

Derived terms

• Braehead
• Orchard Brae

Translations

sloping bank of a river valley

Crimean Tatar: bayır Irish: brí (ga) f Scottish Gaelic: bruthach m or f

hillside or slope — see hillside,‎ slope

References

1. “brō, n.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 26 April 2019.
2. “brae, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1888.
3. “brae, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

• brae (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “brae”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Aber, Bare, Baré, Bear, Brea, Reba, bare, bear, rabe

Scots

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbreɪ/

Noun

brae (plural braes)

1. a hillside, hill
2. a slope or bank

Derived terms

• brae-fit
• brae-hag
• brae-heid