▪ I. bracken1
(ˈbræk(ə)n)
Also 4–9 braken, 5 brakan, bracon, (7 braking), 8 brachen (Sc.), 8–9 breckan (Sc.), breckon (north. dial.).
[ME. (northern) braken, app. representing an ON. *brakni, whence Sw. bräken, Da. bregne ‘fern’ (? and, by corruption, Icel. burkni ‘common fern’.)
The alleged OE. bracce wk. fem. is merely a guess of Cockayne's (Leechd. III. 315) from the place-name Braccanheal Bracknell (which may possibly be from a personal name Bracca). It could not, in any case, be the predecessor of ME. braken. Cf. brake n.1, brack n.4]
1. a. A fern; spec. (in modern writers) Pteris aquilina, the ‘Brake’. (In the north all large ferns are brackens; Pteris aquilina is merely the most conspicuous and best known, from the masses in which it grows.) Southern writers often make bracken collective. Also attrib.
| c 1325 E.E. Allit. P. B. 1675 Þou..most..byte on þe bent of braken & erbes. 1483 Cath. Angl. 40 A Braken, filix. 1523 Fitzherb. Surv. 6 b, Yet may he lawfully..selle all the wode, brome, gorse, fyrs, braken, ferne, busshes. 1548 Turner Names of Herbes (1881) 38 The commune Ferne or brake, which the northerne men cal a bracon. 1563 Richmond. Wills & Inv. (1853) 169 Burning brakens. 1649 W. Blithe Eng. Improv. Impr. (1653) 124 Goss, Broom, Braking, &c. 1775 Lightfoot Flora Scot. (1789) 653 Flowering Fern or Osmund Royal: Royal Brachens Scotis. 1787 Burns Halloween xxvi, Amang the brachens, on the brae. 1810 Tannahill Gloomy Winter's now awa', Feathery breckans fringe the rocks. 1813 Hogg Queen's Wake 2 I found thee in the braken glen. 1878 Black Green Past. ii. 13 Withered brackens coming up in solitary stalks of green. |
b. A shade of brown resembling the colour of turning bracken; a warm orangey-brown.
| 1923 Weekly Dispatch 8 Apr. 14 (Advt.), Shades include Nigger, Bracken, Brown, Tan, Grey. 1978 Morecambe Guardian 14 Mar. 33 (Advt.), Mini 1000 in bracken, one owner. |
2. Comb., as † bracken-bush, a large plant or clump of fern or bracken; bracken-clock, the Rose-beetle (Phyllopertha horticola).
| 1483 Cath. Angl. 40 Brakanbuske, filicarium, felicetum. 1884 G. F. Braithwaite Salmon. Westmrld. vi. 27 The bracken⁓clock, or rose-beetle. |
Hence brackened (ˈbræk(ə)nd), a., overgrown with bracken.
| 1884 W. C. Smith Kildrostan i. i. 32 Brackened braes and craggy hills. |
▪ II. † ˈbracken2 Obs.
[ad. Gael. and Ir. breacan, f. breac spotted or chequered.]
A tartan plaid worn by Highlanders and northern Irishmen. (See M. Hickson Irel. 17th C. I. 257.)
| 1652 News fr. Low Countr. 2 The Scottish Brackin. 1653 Exam. D. Mac Gillmartin in M. Hickson Irel. 17th C. (1884) I. 277 Had seen his mother's bracken in the hands of the soldiers. 1828 Scott F.M. Perth III. 57 I am as familiar with brogues and bracken as if I had worn them myself. |