brand
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /bɹænd/
rhymes: -ænd
Forms: form: brands
Etymology: From Middle English brand, from Old English brand (“fire; flame; burning; torch; sword”), from Proto-West Germanic *brand, from Proto-Germanic *brandaz (“flame; flaming; fire-brand; torch; sword”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrenu- (“to bubble forth; brew; spew forth; burn”).
Cognate with Scots brand, West Frisian brân (“fire”), Dutch brand, German Brand, Danish brand, Swedish brand (“blaze, fire”), Icelandic brandur, French brand (< Germanic). More distantly cognate with Proto-Slavic *gorěti (“to burn”).
Senses: examples: text: The indelible word "homosexual," like a brand that grew deeper and redder every day, became increasingly hard to conceal and to ignore.
ref: 1982 December 4, Mitzel, “A Sissy's Revenge”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 20, page 9:
glosses: A mark or scar made by burning with a hot iron, especially to mark cattle or to classify the contents of a cask.
glosses: A branding iron.
examples: text: The Amtrak brand revitalization approach represents one of the most ambitious, comprehensive, and systematic experiential marketing approaches I have ever seen.
ref: 1999, Bernd Schmitt, Experiential marketing, page 39:
text: In this way, every Citibanker becomes a brand manager and an ambassador of the Citibank brand. ... Indeed, the Citibank brand will "never sleep"
ref: 2000, Duane E. Knapp, The Brandmindset, page 67:
text: Mr. Lundgren claimed that Federated had conducted a focus group and the analysis showed that most people were either indifferent to the name change or preferred the Macy's brand.
ref: 2010, Gayle Soucek, Marshall Field's: The Store That Helped Build Chicago, page 136:
text: Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete.
ref: 2013 July 20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:
synonyms: trademark
logo
brand name
marque
tradename
proprietary name
glosses: The symbolic identity, represented by a name and/or a logo, which indicates a certain product or service to the public.
examples: text: Some brands of breakfast cereal contain a lot of sugar.
glosses: A specific product, service, or provider so distinguished.
examples: text: I didn’t appreciate his particular brand of flattery.
text: New Orleans brand sausage; Danish brand ham
text: [O]ne minute this "Jihadi John" was struggling to get by, and get accepted, in drizzly England, unemployed with a mortgage to pay and a chip on his shoulder, and the next he stands in brilliant Levantine sunlight, where everything is clear and etched, at the vanguard of some Sunni Risorgimento intent on subjecting the world to its murderous brand of Wahhabi Islam.
ref: 2014 November 17, Roger Cohen, “The horror! The horror! The trauma of ISIS [print version: International New York Times, 18 November 2014, p. 9]”, in The New York Times:
glosses: Any specific type or variety of something; a distinct style or manner.
examples: text: The Obama brand had taken a hit two months earlier, when he campaigned for Creigh Deeds in Virginia and Jon Corzine in New Jersey, only to see them both lose.
ref: 2011, Tom Bevan, Carl M. Cannon, Election 2012: The Battle Begins, Crown, →ISBN:
text: Her brand is edgy, cosmopolitan, and out-of-the-box, so blogging is the perfect, ever-changing match for her.
ref: 2012, Start Your Own Personal Concierge Service, Entrepreneur Press, →ISBN, page 104:
text: He unplugged my umbilical cord to take a leisurely swig, smirking, watching me turn blue before giving it back. My cardiologist told me that was impossible, but I'm still convinced. That's very on-brand for [my twin] Jamie.
ref: 2019, Sally Thorne, 99 Percent Mine: A Novel, HarperCollins, →ISBN:
text: “We made fun of [Jacob Rees-Mogg] in the paper” — that would be Cherwell, Oxford’s student-run weekly, where Kuper was a reporter — “all the while not realizing that we were helping to build his brand.”
ref: 2022 May 14, David Segal, quoting Simon Kuper, “An Outsider Takes an Inside Look at the Oxford ‘Chums’ Who Run the U.K.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
synonyms: repute
name
good name
glosses: The public image or reputation and recognized, typical style of an individual or group.
glosses: A mark of infamy; stigma.
glosses: Any minute fungus producing a burnt appearance in plants.
glosses: A torch used for signaling.
examples: text: Goe to prepare the maryages what neede the torchis light? be holde the towres of troy do shyne with brandes that blase full bright.
ref: 1559, Jasper Heywood, transl., Troas:
text: Is yet againe thy brest enflamde, / with brande of venus might
ref: 1559, Jasper Heywood, transl., Troas:
glosses: A flame.
glosses: A conflagration.
examples: text: to burn something to brands and ashes
text: The fearful brands and bleezes of het fire.
ref: 1513, Gavin Douglas, The Eneados:
text: 1859-1890, John Gorham Palfrey, History of New England to the Revolutionary War
Snatching a live brand from a wigwam, Mason threw it on a matted roof.
text: About three o'clock, we came to a recent camping place of the company of rangers: the brands of one of their fires were still smoking; so that, according to the opinion of Beatte, they could not have passed on above a day previously.
ref: 1835, [Washington Irving], chapter VI, in A Tour on the Prairies (The Crayon Miscellany; no. 1), Philadelphia, Pa.: [Henry Charles] Carey, [Isaac] Lea, & Blanchard, →OCLC, page 47:
text: Or when amid the Grecians shippes, / he threw the brandes of fyre.
ref: 1559, Jasper Heywood, transl., Troas:
glosses: A piece of burning wood or peat, or a glowing cinder.
examples: text: Paradise, so late their happy seat, / Waved over by that flaming brand.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, / The hard brands shiver on the steel, / The splintered spear-shafts crack and fly, / The horse and rider reel: […]
ref: 1834 September (date written), Alfred Tennyson, “Sir Galahad”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, stanza I, page 174:
glosses: A sword.
Derived terms: brandalism
brand avatar
brand awareness
brand book
brandcasting
brand equity
brand from the burning
brand goose
brandification
brand image
branding
branding moment
brand-iron
brandiron
brandjacking
brandless
brandlike
brandling
brand linkage
brand loyalty
brandmark
brand-name
brand name
brand-new
brandophile
brand parity
brandscape
brandscaping
brand spankers
brand spanking new
brandstanding
brand stretch
brandwagon
brandwash
brandwidth
brand X
consumer brand
counterbrand
debrand
dust-brand
freeze brand
ghost brand
house brand
interbrand
intrabrand
levin brand
masterbrand
maverick brand
megabrand
microbrand
multibrand
name brand
nonbrand
off brand
on-brand
on brand
own brand
personal brand
private brand
store brand
subbrand
superbrand
Related terms: brandish