sb. and a. Sc. Forms: see below. [Etymology and even form uncertain: Jamieson has the forms braik (sing.) bracks (pl.), braxes (pl.), and braxit, as well as braxy. Either the latter is orig. an adj. brax-y, formed from a collective pl. bracks, brax (cf. peasy, poxy), or it is an erroneous sing. deduced from braxes, as if this were braxie-s. Prob. ‘the bracks’ is the original, being a special use of the pl. of BRACK in some sense derived from BREAK. Cf. OE. bræc rheum, catarrh, also bræc-cóðu and bræc-séocnes falling sickness, bræc-séoc ill with falling sickness. As examples of the ways in which names of diseases are treated, we may compare pox for pocks, axis, axes, axys (often as pl.) for access, jaundys pl. for jaundice.]
1. The popular name in Scotland of splenic apoplexy in sheep; an inflammatory disease of the internal parts, rapid and fatal in its effect.
1791. Statist. Acc. Scotl., IV. 8. (Lethnot, Forf.) A disease which is here called the Braxes. Ibid., 242. (Barry, Forf.) Among the shepherds it is called the Bracks. Ibid., II. 440. (Selkirk) The braxy as some call it. Ibid. (1793), IX. 326. The sheep that died of the braxy in the latter end of autumn.
1822. W. Napier, Store-farming, 58. The sickness or braxy has been very fatal in many parts of this country.
2. as adj. Characterized by this disease, as braxy-sheep, mutton; also absol. the flesh of a braxy sheep, or, generally, of one that has died by disease or accident.
1785. Burns, Ep. W. Simson, xix. While moorlan herds like guid, fat braxies.
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm., ix. (1857), 165. Two tall pyramids of braxy mutton heaped up each on a corn-riddle.
1863. N. Macleod, in Gd. Words, 503. The occasional dinner luxury of Braxy,—a species of mutton which need not be too minutely inquired into.
1880. Cornh. Mag., June, 691. Braxy is the flesh of sheep which have died a natural death, by flood, drift, or disease.
Hence Braxied ppl. a.
1870. Stewart, Lochaber, xix. (1883), 112. A tender lamb or braxied sheep.
