▪ I. brave, a., n., int.
(breɪv)
[a. F. brave, not an original Fr. word, but adapted from It. bravo brave, gallant, fine: cf. Sp. and Pg. bravo, Pr. and Cat. brau. Ulterior derivation uncertain. Nearly all the Eng. senses may have been adopted from French. Cf. braw.
(Prof. Storm would associate bravo (in Sp. also bravio) with OIt. braido, brado wild, savage, which is also a sense of Sp. and Pg. bravo; cf. Pr. braidiu fiery, spirited (horse). These he would refer to a Latin type *brabidus, formed from rabidus mad, fierce, of the existence of which there appears to be other evidence. See Romania 1876, p. 170. A more recent conjecture (Romania XIII. 110) tries to derive it from barbarus, but this does not suit Pr. brau.)]
A. adj.
1. a. Of persons and their attributes: Courageous, daring, intrepid, stout-hearted (as a good quality).
| 1485 Caxton Paris & V. Prol., It is very good to relate the brave deeds. 1591 Shakes. 1 Hen. VI, iii. ii. 134 A brauer Souldier neuer couched Launce. 1642 Fuller Holy & Prof. St. ii. xviii. 118 Innocence and Independance make a brave spirit. 1644 Milton Educ. (1738) 137 High hopes of living to be brave men, and worthy Patriots. 1732 Pope Mor. Ess. i. 115 Who combats bravely is not therefore brave. He dreads a Death-bed like the meanest slave. 1769 Junius Lett. iii. 16 A brave man has no rules to follow but the dictates of his courage. 1839 Thirlwall Greece II. 233 For six days they made a brave defence. 1848 Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. 157 Extolled by the great body of Churchmen as if he had been the bravest and purest of martyrs. |
b. absol. the brave (now only pl.).
| 1697 Dryden Alexander's F. 15 None but the brave deserves the fair. 1726 Gay Fables i. i. 33 The brave Love mercy, and delight to save. 1782 Cowper Loss Roy. George 1, Toll for the brave! The brave that are no more. 1852 Tennyson Ode Wellington viii, To glorious burial slowly borne Follow'd by the brave of other lands. |
2. Finely-dressed; = Sc. braw; splendid, showy, grand, fine, handsome. (Rare in 18th c.; in 19th c. apparently a literary revival, or adopted from dialect speech.)
| 1568 Like will to L. in Hazl. Dodsl. III. 312 To go more gayer and more brave, Than doth a lord. 1570 Levins Manip. 42 Braue, splendidus. a 1593 H. Smith Wks. (1866–7) I. 150 The lilies which are braver than Solomon. 1612 Heywood Apol. Actors Author to Bk., One man is ragged, and another brave. 1624 Capt. Smith Virginia i. 11 At length he came to most braue and fayre houses. 1677 Moxon Mech. Exerc. (1703) 257 Lord Montague's brave House in Bloomsbury. 1810 Scott Lady of L. ii. xvi, Now might you see the tartans brave. 1855 Browning Bp. Blougram's Apol., His coat..Brave with the needlework of noodledom. |
3. loosely, as a general epithet of admiration or praise: Worthy, excellent, good, ‘capital’, ‘fine’, ‘famous’, etc.; ‘an indeterminate word, used to express the superabundance of any valuable quality in men or things’ (J.). arch. (Cf. braw a.) a. of persons.
| 1600 Shakes. A.Y.L. iii. iv. 43 O that's a braue man, hee writes braue verses, speakes braue words. 1603 Mournef. Dittie in Shaks. C. Praise 56 You Poets all, brave Shakspeare, Johnson, Greene. 1673 Ess. Educ. Gentlewom. 29 Zeuxes and Timanthes were brave Painters. 1679 Penn Addr. Prot. i. §5 (1692) 20 Many brave Families have been ruin'd by a Gamester. 1740 J. Clarke Educ. Youth (ed. 3) 57 His Son is a brave Scholar. |
b. of things.
| 1577 J. Northbrooke Dicing (1843) 102 Nowe are the braue and golden dayes. 1599 Shakes. Much Ado v. iv. 130 Ile deuise thee braue punishments for him. 1605 ― Lear iii. ii. 79 This is a braue night to coole a Curtizan. 1653 Walton Angler 104 We wil make a brave Breakfast with a piece of powdered Bief. 1798 Southey Eng. Eclog. ii, Here she found..a brave fire to thaw her. 1834 ― Doctor xxii. 51 Knowledge is a brave thing. 1850 Mrs. Browning Poems I. 5 Here's a brave earth to sin and suffer on! |
c. brave new world (also with capital initials): the title of a satirical novel (1932) by Aldous Huxley (after Shakespeare's Tempest v. i. 183) portraying a society in which ‘progress’ has produced a nightmarish ‘utopia’; freq. used allusively.
| 1933 Ann. Reg. 1932 35 The driving force that sweeps Mr. Huxley on to presenting every nook and cranny of his Brave New World to the fiercest light of inquiry is the heart-corroding disgust he feels for human society as it will become according to his vision. 1935 H. G. Wells Things to Come x. 93, I will go for this Brave New World of theirs—tooth and claw. 1947 J. Hayward Prose Lit. since 1939 16 The practice and particularly the theory of agriculture were the subject of many of these treatises on post-war planning—‘blueprints’..of a brave new world. |
d. brave west winds, the strong prevailing westerly winds in ‘the Roaring Forties’.
| 1883 [see forty n. 4]. |
4. Comb., chiefly parasynthetic, as brave-hearted, brave-horsed, brave-minded, brave-sensed, brave-spirited, brave-spiritedness.
| 1617 Hieron Wks. II. 313 Termes of Worth, of Gallantrie, of Braue-spiritednesse, and the like. 1631 Weever Anc. Fun. Mon. 636 That braue-spirited politicke-wise Lord. 1663 in Spalding Troub. Chas. I (1829) 12 The earl of Angus..and thirty other brave-horsed gentlemen, came to the Bog. 1873 Symonds Grk. Poets iii. 70 The whole people mourns..for the death of a brave-hearted man. |
5. quasi-adv. = bravely. (Now only poet.)
| 1596 Spenser F.Q. i. iv. 8 There sat most braue embellished..A mayden queene. 1721 Strype Eccl. Mem. I. i. xlvi. 345 Noble and brave-built structures. 1808 Scott Marm. i. x, The trumpets flourish'd brave. 1870 Morris Earthly Par. III. iv. 184 Better housed, or braver clad. |
B. n. [in sense 1, directly from F. brave.]
1. a. A brave man, a warrior, soldier: since 1800 applied chiefly to warriors among the North American Indians [after the French in N. America].
| 1601 Chester Love's Mart. (1878) 55 We haue no cause to feare their forreine braues. a 1611 Chapman Iliad iii. 463 Advance Thy braues against his single power. 1763 Churchill Proph. Fam. Poems I. 118 The race of Roman braves Thought it not worth their while to make us slaves. 1823 Byron Island iii. ii, The wave Is hurl'd down headlong, like the foremost brave. 1837 W. Irving Capt. Bonneville (1849) 96 The chiefs leading the van, the braves following in a long line, painted and decorated. 1841 Catlin N. Amer. Ind. (1844) I. vi. 35 A Blackfoot brave whose portrait I have painted. |
b. A bravo, bully; a hired assassin. Obs. or arch.
| 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. iii. iv. (1641) 187/1 Ador'd of Flatterers, Of Softlings, Wantons, Braves and Loyterers. 1611 Coryat Crudities 275 There are certaine desperate and resolute villaines in Venice called Braves. 1649 Milton Eikon. 25 Happy times, when Braves and Hacksters were thought the fittest to defend the King. 1675 Dryden Aurengz. i. i. 96 Morat's too insolent, too much a Brave. 1693 W. Robertson Phraseol. Gen. 277 A brave (or fellow hired to revenge a quarrel of another, sicarius. 1865 Sir J. K. James Tasso II. xi. xxxvi, Ye sneaking, skulking braves. |
2. A bravado. arch.
| 1590 Greene Never too late (1600) 52 Suppose..that beautie hath given him the braue. 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. iii. iv. (1641) 182/1 Marcheth amain to give the Town a brave. 1600 Heywood 1 Edw. IV Wks. 1874 I. 54 Leaue off these idle braues of thine. 1662 Fuller Worthies i. 33 Bitter was the Brave which railing Rabsheca sent to holy Hezekiah. 1840 Browning Sordello v. 432 A whole life's braves Should somehow be made good. 1878 Simpson Sch. Shaks. I. 75 Stucley waited about the court and amused the Councillors with his braves and brags. |
† 3. Finery, splendour = bravery 3. Obs.
| 1602 Warner Alb. Eng. xi. lxvii. 285 Sixe score Concubines, that seem'd so many Queenes for braue. |
† C. int. [Cf. bravo.] Capital! Excellent! Bravo! Obs. or dial.
| a 1593 Marlowe Jew of M. ii. ii, Oh, brave, master! I worship your nose for this. 1749 Fielding Tom Jones xv. ii, O brave!..my cousin has you, I find. 1862 Barnes Rhymes Dorset Dial. I. 148 O brave! What wages do 'e meän to gi'e? |
▪ II. brave, v.
(breɪv)
[a. F. brave-r to act the brave toward, etc., f. brave brave.]
I. transitive.
1. To treat with bravado; to challenge, defy.
| 1546 St. Papers Hen. VIII, XI. 107 Leest the Frenchmen might take occasion..to have braved Your Majestie. 1590 Greene Orl. Fur. (1599) 9 Ile beard and braue thee in thy proper towne. 1603 Knolles Turks (1621) 94 Braving them (if they were men) to come out. 1636 Heywood in Ann. Dubrensia (1877) 69 Ossa and Pelion, that so brave the sky. a 1764 Lloyd Actor Poet. Wks. 1774 I. 12 Braving monarchs in his Saviour's cause. 1884 Tennyson Becket 100, I must hence to brave The Pope, King Louis, and this turbulent priest. |
† 2. To threaten, menace. Obs.
| a 1619 Bp. Cowper in Spurgeon Treas. Dav. Ps. cxix. 19 He braved him with banishments. |
3. To meet or face (danger) with bravery; to encounter, defy. (The ordinary current sense.)
| 1776 Gibbon Decl. & F. I. xvii. 436 The adventurous Leander braved the passage of the flood. 1797 Mrs. Radcliffe Italian i, Do not brave the utter darkness of these ruins. 1832 H. Martineau Life in Wilds i. 4 Poverty induces them to brave danger. a 1876 J. H. Newman Hist. Sk. I. iv. iv. 409 They braved the severe weather of that climate. 1884 Pall Mall G. 4 Jan. 2/1 The school braves successfully the ordeal of annual inspection. |
† 4. To make brave, embolden, encourage. Obs.
| a 1593 H. Smith Wks. (1866–7) I. 172 We may see..how a gay coat..or a gold ring, can brave a man's mind. |
† 5. To make splendid; to deck out, adorn. Obs.
| 1590 Exhort. Her Maj. Subj. in Harl. Misc. I. 172 Brave not yourselves in gold, silk, and silver. 1594 Shakes. Rich. III, v. iii. 279 He [the sun] should haue brau'd the East an houre ago. 1596 ― Tam. Shr. iv. iii. 125 Thou [the tailor] hast brau'd manie men. 1625 Bacon Love, Ess. (Arb.) 445 How it [love] braves, the Nature, and value of things. |
† 6. To boast; ‘to carry a boasting appearance of’ J. to brave out: to display boastfully, show off. to brave oneself: to boast or pride oneself in.
| 1581 J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 44 b, Points, which you seeme specially to have called out, that in them you might brave out y⊇ nimblenes of your witte, and eloquence of toung. a 1626 Bacon (J.) Both particular persons and factions are apt enough to flatter themselves or, at least, to brave that which they believe not. 1644–52 J. Smith Sel. Disc. vii. i. (1821) 309 They rather proudly braved themselves in their knowledge of the Deity, etc. |
II. intransitive (and const. to brave it).
7. To boast, glory, vaunt. to brave it: to swagger, act the bravo. Now in to brave it out. (Perh. rather sense 3?)
| 1549 Duke of Somerset in Strype Eccl. Mem. II. i. xxii. 180 The Frenchmen..will brave much of this. 1597 J. Payne Royal Exch. 14 These fellows wyll brave yt out, how slender so ever they be within. 1613 W. Browne Brit. Past. ii. v. (1772) II. 188 Nevermore let holy Dee O're other rivers braue. 1627 Bp. Hall Psalmes Met. x. 3 The wicked braues and boasts In his vile and outragious thought. 1702 C. Mather Magn. Chr. iii. iii. (1852) 542 That peace might brave it among you. 1817 Wilberforce in Parl. Deb. 1693 Braving about the liberties of his country. 1855 Tennyson Maud iv. v. 17 However we brave it out, we men are a little breed. |
† 8. intr. To dress splendidly, to make a gay show; freq. also to brave it. Obs.
| 1583 T. Watson Poems (Arb.) 60 Thou glasse, wherein my Dame hath such delight, As when she braues, then most on thee to gaze. 1592 Daniel Compl. Rosamond (1717) 52 And live in Pomp to brave among the Best. a 1632 Bp. M. Smyth Serm. 130 To strowt it, and to stout it, and to braue it in costly apparell. |
9. To act bravely, to be brave. rare.
| 1884 W. C. Smith Kildrostan i. ii. 265 Haunted With the young craving For doing and braving In the world's battle. |
▪ III. brave
see bravy.