Now only Sc. and northern 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. brʓw, bréaw eyelid, OS. brâwa, brâha, OHG. brâwa (MHG. brá, Ger. braue) eyebrow:—OTeut. *brǣwâ-: 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. éaʓhill ‘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.’
c. 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.’)
c. 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. 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, -head, -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. Ibid. (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.
