brach
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /bɹæt͡ʃ/
rhymes: -ætʃ
Forms: form: brachs
form: braches
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
Senses: examples: text: 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.
ref: 1596, Tho[mas] Nashe, “Dialogus”, in Haue with You to Saffron-Walden. Or, Gabriell Harveys Hunt is Up. […], London: […] John Danter, →OCLC; republished as J[ohn] P[ayne] C[ollier], editor, Have with You to Saffron-Walden (Miscellaneous Tracts; Temp. Eliz. and Jac. I), [London: s.n., 1870], →OCLC, page 134:
text: 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.
ref: c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv], signature [C4], verso:
text: [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, […]
ref: c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vi], signature [G4], recto:
text: [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, […]
ref: 1615, G[ervase] M[arkham], “[The Husbandmans Recreations: […].] Of Hunting, and of All the Particular Knowledges Belonging therunto.”, in Countrey Contentments, in Two Bookes: The First, Containing the Whole Art of Riding Great Horses in Very Short Time, […] The Second Intituled, The English Huswife: […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for R[oger] Iackson, […], →OCLC, 1st section ([Of Hunting]), pages 25–26:
text: 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.
ref: 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Non-necessary, Remote, Outward, Adventitious or Accidentall Causes: As First from the Nurse”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 1, section 2, member 4, subsection 1, page 190:
text: 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.
ref: 1848, Charles Kingsley, Junior, The Saint’s Tragedy; or, The True Story of Elizabeth of Hungary, […], London: John W[illiam] Parker, […], →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page 63:
topics: hobbies
hunting
lifestyle
synonyms: brachet
glosses: 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.
examples: text: Avvay this Brach. I'll bring thee, Rogue, vvithin / The Statute of Sorcerie, triceſimo tertio [thirty-three] / Of Harry the eight: […]
ref: 1610 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Alchemist, London: […] Thomas Snodham, for Walter Burre, and are to be sold by Iohn Stepneth, […], published 1612, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, signature B2, verso:
text: Here's that ſhall ſtay your ſtomack better then the bit you ſnarle for. Thou greedy Brach thou.
ref: c. 1632 (date written), Richard Brome, “The Weeding of the Covent-Garden. Or The Middlesex-Justice of Peace.”, in [Alex[ander] Brome], editor, Five New Playes, […], London: […] [J. T.] for A[ndrew] Crook[e] […], and for H[enry] Brome […], published 1659 (indicated as 1658), →OCLC, Act IV, scene i, page 56:
text: Now, was it not the depth of absurdity—of genuine idiocy, for that pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach to dream that I could love her?
ref: 1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter XIV, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume I, London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC, page 340:
glosses: A despicable or disagreeable woman; a bitch.