▪ I. branks1
(bræŋks)
Rare sing. brank; also as sing. a branks (cf. a bellows).
[A Scotch word found in use since the 16th c.: etymology unknown. It has been compared with ME. bernak (barnacle) and brake; also with Ger. pranger the pillory, pranger a barnacle for a horse; and with Du. prang a fetter.
(Jamieson was prob. right in taking sense 2 ‘bridle’ as the earlier (cf. brank v.): but as the history is so uncertain, the senses are here placed simply in the chronological order of the available quotations.)]
1. A scold's bridle; an instrument of punishment used in the case of scolds, etc., consisting of a kind of iron framework to enclose the head, having a sharp metal gag or bit which entered the mouth and restrained the tongue.
| 1595 in Munic. Acc. Newcastle (1848) 41 Paide for caring a woman throughe the towne for skoulding, with branks, 4d. 1652 in E. Henderson Kirk-Session Rec. Dumfermline 18 Nov., She shall stand at the tron, with the branks on hir mouth. 1772 Pennant Tours Scotl. (1774) 80 The Brank..is a sort of head piece, which opens and encloses the head of the impatient. 1858 T. N. Brushfield Obsol. Punishmts. 6 It has been called..a Brank, the Branks, a pair of Branks, the Scold's Bridle, Gossip's Bridle, and..[in 1623] ‘a Brydle for a curste queane’. Branks were in active use in Scotland many years before their introduction into England. 1869 Spurgeon J. Ploughm. Talk vi. 45 In Walton Church..there is a brank or scold's bridle. |
2. ‘A sort of bridle... Instead of leather, it has on each side a piece of wood joined to a halter, to which a bit is sometimes added; but more frequently a kind of wooden{ddd}muzzle.’ Jamieson.
| 1657 S. Colvil Whigs Supplic. (1751) 114 Some ask'd..Why sodds for saddle, and branks for bridle. 1787 Burns Death & Dr. Hornb., Its shanks They were as thin, as sharp an' sma' As cheeks o' branks. 1849 Tait's Mag. XVI. 568 His cheeks clapped together like a pair of dismantled branks. |
▪ II. branks2
[Perh. an application of branks1 in the sense of a gag; but cf. branchus and brancos.]
The mumps.
| 1794–6 E. Darwin Zoon. (1802) III. 365 Mumps, or branks, is a contagious inflammation of the parotis. 1860 Ramsay Remin. v. (ed. 18) 115 I've had..the branks. |