Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BRAID, a.

Deceitful. – Shak. Chaucer used the Saxon word brede, to deceive. This is the figurative sense of braid. [Obs.]

BRAID, n.

1. A string, cord, or other texture, formed by weaving together different strands.
2. A start. – Sackville.

BRAID, v.t. [Sax. bredan, to braid; Old Eng. brede; Dan. breider, to upbraid.]

1. To weave or infold three or more strands to form one.
2. To reproach. [Obs.] [See Upbraid.]

BRAID'ED, pp.

Woven together.

BRAID'ING, ppr.

Weaving or interlacing.

BRAIL, n. [Fr. brayer, a brail, or truss, a contracted word.]

1. A piece of leather to bind up a hawk's wing. – Bailey.
2. In navigation, brails are ropes passing through pulleys, on the mizzen mast and yard, and fastened to the aftmost leech of the sail in different places, to truss it up close. Also, all ropes employed to haul up the bottoms, lower corners and skirts of the other great sails, for the more ready furling of them. – Mar. Dict.

BRAIL, v.t.

To brail up, is to haul up into the brails, or to truss up with the brails. – Mar. Dict.

BRAIN, n. [Sax. brægan, bregen, bragen; D. brein; Gr. βρεγμα, properly the fore part of the head, or sinciput, also the brain.]

1. That soft whitish mass, or viscus, inclosed in the cranium or skull, in which the nerves and spinal marrow terminate, and which is supposed to be the seat of the soul or intelligent principle in man. It is divided above into a right and left hemisphere, and below into six lobes. It is composed of a cortical substance, which is external, and a medullary, which is internal. From the brain proceed nine pairs of nerves, which are distributed principally to the head and neck. – Hooper. Encyc.
2. The understanding. – Hale.
3. The affections; fancy; imagination. [Unusual.] – Shak. Sandys.

BRAIN, v.t.

1. To dash out the brains; to kill by beating out the brains. – Pope. Dryden.
2. To conceive; to understand. [Not used.] – Shak.

BRAIN'ISH, a.

Hot-headed; furious; as L. cerebrosus. – Shak.

BRAIN'LESS, a.

Without understanding; silly; thoughtless; witless. – Tickel. Shak.

BRAIN'PAN, n. [brain and pan.]

The skull which incloses the brain. – Dryden.

BRAIN'SICK, a. [brain and sick.]

Disordered in the understanding; giddy; thoughtless. – Shak. Knolles.

BRAIN'SICK-LY, adv.

Weakly; with a disordered understanding. – Shak.

BRAIN'SICK-NESS, n.

Disorder of the understanding; giddiness; indiscretion.

BRAIN'-THROB, n.

The throbbing of the brain.

BRAIT, n.

Among jewelers, a rough diamond.

BRAKE, n. [See Break.]

1. An instrument or machine to break flax or hemp.
2. The handle or lever by which a pump is worked; that is brac, brachium, an arm.
3. A baker's kneading trough.
4. A sharp bit, or snaffle.
5. A machine for confining refractory horses while the smith is shoeing them. – Johnson.
6. That part of the carriage of a movable battery, or engine which enables it to turn. – Farifax.
7. A large heavy harrow for breaking clods after plowing; called also a drag.
8. A something that is or may be used to stop the motion of a body.

BRAKE, n. [W. brwg; Ir. fraoch; Port. brejo; Sp. brezo; Dan. bregne; G. breche; L. erica; Gr. ερικω, ερεικω, to break. So named probably from its roughness or broken appearance.]

1. Brake is a name given to fern, or rather to the female fern, a species of cryptogamian plants of the genus Pteris, whose fructification is in lines under the margin of the leaf or a frond. – Fam. of Plants. Encyc.
2. A place overgrown with brake. – Encyc.
3. A thicket; a place overgrown with shrubs and brambles. – Johnson.
4. In the United States, a thicket of canes, as a cane-brake; but I believe used only in composition. – Ellicott.

BRAKE, pp. [of Break. Obs.]

[See Break.]

BRAKE'MAN, n.

The man whose business is to stop cars on rail-ways.

BRAK'Y, a.

Full of brakes; abounding with brambles or shrubs; rough; thorny. – B. Jonson.

BRAM'A, or BRUM'A, n. [or BRAH'MA. Broum, Piromis. Herodotus. Qu. L. primus, Ir. priomh, first, chief, Goth. frum, origin, beginning.]

The chief deity of the Indian nations, considered as the creator of all things. – As. Researches.

BRAM'A, n.

The bream, a fish. [See Bream.]

BRAM'BLE, n. [Sax. brembel, brembr, bremel, a bramble, rubus, vepres; D. braam, braambosch, braamstruik, bramble; Ger. brombeer, blackberry; brombeerstaude, bramble. This plant probably is named from its berry or its prickles. See Broom.]

The raspberry bush or blackberry bush; a general name of the genus Rubes, of which there are several species. They are armed with prickles; hence in common language, any rough, prickly shrub.