brae
(breɪ, dial. breː, brɪə, briː)
Now only Sc. and n. dial. Forms: 4 bro, 4–8 bra, 5–6 (Sc.) brai, 5–7 bray(e, (6 braue), 6–7 bray, braie, 6– brae, 8–9 (dial.) brea, breea.
[Evidently a. ON. brá = OE. brǽw, bréaw eyelid, OS. brâwa, brâha, OHG. brâwa (MHG. brâ, Ger. braue) eyebrow:—OTeut. *bræ̂wâ-: cf. brow and bree.
The phonetic history is clear: bro, bra, brae answer to ON. brá, as blo, bla, blae do to blá. The word must have passed through the sense of ‘eye-brow’ to ‘brow of a hill’, supercilium (cf. OE. éaᵹhill ‘eye hill’ = eyebrow); but no quotations illustrating the change appear. The Eng. form bro has long been obs., and in spoken use brae is now exclusively northern and mainly Scotch, though occurring in recent literary English.]
1. The steep bank bounding a river valley. Frequent in the collocation ‘banks and braes’.
| 1330 R. Brunne Chron. 310 Þer to þe rayne bigan, and flowand bank and bro. 1375 Barbour Bruce iv. 372 Vnder ane bra [thai] thair galay dreuch. 1483 Cath. Angl. 39 Bra, ripa. 1536 Bellenden Cron. Scot. (1821) I. 235 Gret slauchter was maid on the brayis of this rever. 1615 G. Sandys Trav. 99 Slow Nile with low-sunke streames shall keepe his braies. 1791 Burns Banks of Doon (vers. 3) i, Ye banks and braes o' bonie Doon. 1803 Wordsw. Ellen Irwin, Upon the braes of Kirtle. 1855 Whitby Gloss., Breea, the brink or bank of a river. |
2. A steep, a slope, a hill-side. (Called in south of England a hill, as in Ludgate or Holborn Hill; in the north a ‘hill’ is always a mount or eminence with a summit, and with slopes or ‘braes’ on all sides of it, as in ‘the Calton Hill’.)
| 1425 Wyntoun Cron. viii. xxvi. 7 The Scottis men come til a bra. 1535 Stewart Chron. Scotl. II. 524 Vnder ane bra quhair tha thocht it to hyde. 1548 Patten Sped. Scotl. (Arber Garner III. 62) The hill (for so they call a Bray). 1600 Fairfax Tasso ix. xcvi. 178 On that steepe bray Lord Guelpho would not than Hazard his folke. 1634 S. Rutherford Lett. (1862) xli, At the very overgoing of the brae and mountain. 1716 Lond. Gaz. No. 5415/2 The Braes of Mar. 1799 J. Robertson Agric. Perth 146 The farmers..in the breas. 1820 Scott Monast. ii, The steep braes rose abruptly over the little glen. 1822 T. Bewick Mem. 10 A steep but low ‘brae’. 1830 Praed Poems (1865) I. 179, I have seen thee gaze Upon these birks and braes. |
3. Comb., as brae-face, brae-head, brae-side; also, brae(s)-laird, ‘a proprietor of land on the southern declivity of the Grampians’ (Jamieson); brae-man, one who lives among the hills; spec. one who lives on the southern slopes of the Grampians.
| 1799 J. Robertson Agric. Perth 422 The brea-faces..are better fitted for sheep than cattle. 1818 Scott Rob Roy xxvi, He..took to the brae-side, and became a broken-man. 1823 ― Quentin D. ii, ‘I am, master’ answered the young Scot, ‘a braeman’. 1854 H. Miller Sch. & Schm. (1858) 535 A splendid bonfire blazing from the brae-head. |