# brae
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English bro, bra (“bank of a stream; raised edge of a ditch or pit”), from Old Norse brá (“eyebrow; eyelash”) (probably in the sense of the brow of a hill), from Proto-Germanic *brēwō (“eyebrow”), 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”); and is a doublet of bree (“(Scotland) brow; forehead; (obsolete or dialectal, Scotland) eyebrow; eyelid”) and brow.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /bɹeɪ/, (dialectal) /bɹɪə/, /bɹiː/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* (General American) IPA: /bɹeɪ/
* Homophone: bray
* Rhymes: -eɪ, -iː

### Noun

brae (plural braes)
* (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'.
* (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
### References

* ↑ “brō, n.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 26 April 2019.
* 1 2 “brae, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1888.
* ↑ “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.

### Anagrams

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

## Scots
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbreɪ/

### Noun

brae (plural braes)
* a hillside, hill
* a slope or bank

#### Derived terms

* brae-fit
* brae-hag
* brae-heid