▪ I. brocard1
(ˈbrəʊkəd)
[a. F. brocard, akin to med.L. brocarda, brocardicorum opus, a name given to the ‘sentences’ of Burchard or Brocard, bishop of Worms in the 11th c., who compiled twenty books of ‘Regulæ Ecclesiasticæ’.]
1. Law. An elementary principle or maxim.
| a 1624 Swinburne Spousals (1686) 184 Because the Brocardes or contrary Conclusions, rather breed brabbles, than pacifie Contentions. 1759 Fountainhall Decisions I. 243 (Jam.) Alledged, He was minor, and so non tenetur placitare super hæreditate paterna. Answered, The brocard meets not. 1785 Arnot Trials (1812) 298. 1825 Scott Betrothed Introd., Societas mater discordiarum is a brocard as ancient and as veritable. 1862 M. Napier Mem. Visct. Dundee II. 10 Dolus latet in generalibus is a brocard of the civilians. |
2. gen.
| 1836–7 Sir W. Hamilton Metaph. xiii. I. 234 note, The scholastic brocard pointing to the difficulties of the study of self: Reflexiva cogitatio facile fit deflexiva. 1856 Ferrier Inst. Metaph. 261 The scholastic brocard, which has been adopted as the tenth counter-proposition, is the fundamental article in the creed of..‘the sensualists’. |
‖ 3. Biting speech, cutting gibe. (A French sense.)
| 1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. II. iii. iii. 143 Lameth..is met in those Assembly corridors by nothing but Royalist brocards; sniffs, huffs, and open insults. |
▪ II. † ˈbrocard2 Obs.
[F. brocart.]
= brocket.
| 1607 Topsell Foure-f. Beastes 122 These Brocards are as great in quantity as other vulgar Hartes, but their bodies are leaner. [1611 Cotgr., Brocart, a kind of swift stag, which hath but one small branch growing out of the stemme of his horne.] |
▪ III. brocard3
obs. form of brocade n.