Forms: 4–7 brasile, brasill, 4–8 brasil, 5 brasyl(l)e, braysyle, 6 brasell, brasyll, brasaill, brassell, bresyle, 6–7 brazel(l, bresil(l, 7 brasel, brazile, -ill, 7– brazil. [? a. Sp. (also Pg.) brasil or It. brasile; corresp. to F. brésil, Pr. bresil, brezilh, in OF. berzi, bresis, OIt. verzino, in med.L. ? brezellum, brasilium, bresillum, braxile: of unknown origin; perh. a corruption of an oriental name of the dye-wood originally so called. On the discovery of an allied species, also yielding a dye, in South America, the territory where it grew was called terra de brasil, ‘red-dye-wood land,’ afterwards abbreviated to Brasil ‘Brazil.’ Brazil-wood was thus not named from the country, but the converse was the case. Formerly pronounced in Eng. bra·zil, as shown by rhymes and spellings.
Conjectural etymologies are F. briser to break, brésiller to crumble (as if the wood arrived in a broken state); also F. braise, Sp. brasa ‘glowing coal’ (from its color); also Arab. wars saffron, in some parts perhaps pronounced vars, vers (cf. It. verzino). See Diez, Littré.]
I. The substance.
1. Originally, the name of the hard brownish-red wood of an East Indian tree, known as Sappan (Cæsalpinia Sappan), from which dyers obtain a red color. After the discovery of the New World, the name was extended and gradually transferred to the similar wood of a South American species (C. echinata), which has given its name to the land of Brazil, and to other species, natives of the West Indies and Central America, ‘all valuable to the dyer, producing various tints of red, orange, and peach colour.’
1386. [see 2].
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 47. Brasyle, gaudo uel lignum Alexandrinum.
1544. Ascham, Toxoph. (Arb.), 113. As for brasell, Elme, Wych and Asshe, experience doth proue them to be but meane for bowes.
1553. Eden, Treat. New Ind. (Arb.), 20. Presilium or brasyll, cometh from Darnasseri … almost cc. leages from Calicut. Ibid. (1553), Decades W. Ind., I. iv. (Arb.), 80. None other trees then brasile, whiche the Italians caule Verzino. Ibid., 199. Of the bresyle.
1594. Blundevil, Exerc., V. (ed. 7), 570. The Province Brasilia tooke his name of the wood called Brasill.
1623. S. Harwood, Propag. Plants, III. ii. (1668), 85. A little hand-bill … helved of Ivory, box, or brasil.
1801. Strutt, Sports & Past., II. i. 53. Bows were sometimes made of brazil.
b. Now usually called Brazil-wood.
1530. Palsgr., 200/2. Brasell tre to dye with, bresil.
1559. Morwyng, Evonym., 209. Of the coloure of the bresill wode.
1604. E. G., trans. Acosta’s Hist. Indies, IV. xxix. 289. 130 quintalles of Bresill wood.
1678. Salmon, Pharmacop. Lond., iv. 38. Brasil shrub, cold and dry and astringent.
1732. Acc. Workhouses, 86. Grinding Brazil Wood, and other things for dying.
1853. Th. Ross, trans. Humboldt’s Trav., III. xxvii. 141. To mark the finest trunks of Brazil-wood.
1868. Treas. Bot., 188.
c. attrib. Of Brazil-wood; also fig.
1577. Will of W. Olyuer (Somerset Ho.). Unto John Maclee my brasyll staffe.
1598. Marston, Met. Pigmalion’s Image, Sat. 2. 145. Blesse his sweet honour’s running brasell boule.
1613. W. Browne, Brit. Past., II. iii. (1772), II. 118. Her left hand held a knotty Brasill bow.
1624. T. Scot, 2d Pt. Vox Pop., 7. Resting himselfe vpon a little Brasill staffe.
1710. Lond. Gaz., No. 4654/3. 1 Coffee-Pot with a Brasil Handle.
d. Taken as the type of hardness (whence formerly turned into bowls for bowling): thence the simile as hard as brazil still common dialectally, and sometimes explained as referring to the next word.
1635. Quarles, Embl., III. v. (1718), 146. Are my bones brazil, or my flesh of oak? Ibid., I. x. (1718), 42. Turn thou my Brazil thoughts anew.
1877. Peacock, N. W. Linc. Gloss. (E. D. S.), s.v. ‘It’s as hard as brazil.’
1879. Miss Jackson, Shropsh. Gloss.
1879. Athenæum, 19 July, 73. ‘As hard as Brazil,’ is a common saying over a great part, perhaps the whole, of England.
† 2. The dye-stuff and dye yielded by this wood.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Nun’s Pr. ‘End-Link,’ 13. His colour for to dyghen With brasile [-il, -ill] ne with greyn of Portyngale.
c. 1475. E. E. Misc. (1855), 77. To make brasyle to flouryche letterys or to reule with bokys.
1532–3. Act 24 Hen. VIII., ii. Diers … haue vsed deceyuable waies in dyeng with brasell and such other lyke subtilties.
1546. Inv. Ch. Goods Surrey, 107. Item for brassell xijd.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, V. ii. 547. One may write as faire a red as with roset made of Brasill.
1627. Bacon, Sylva, § 857. A small Quantity of Saffron will Tinct more then a very great Quantity of Brasil.
1669. W. Simpson, Hydrol. Chym., 41. The Alkalizate Salts are used … in water for the extraction of Brasil.
b. transf. Stuff dyed with brazil, ‘scarlet’ cloth.
1389. R. Wimbeldon, Serm. (Helmingham MS. 34. See also Foxe, A. & M., I. 626/1). Allas, allas, þat greete cite þat was cloþid wiþ bys and purpur and brasile [Rev. xviii. 16 κόκκινον, cocco, ‘scarlet’].
c. attrib.
a. 1600. in Nichols, Progr. Q. Eliz., III. 510. A saufegarde of brasell-colour.
1703. Art’s Improv., I. 28. Wash it over several times with Brasil Water, till you like the Colour.
II. The country, and its products.
3. A large country of South America, also called ‘the Brazils.’ Also attrib. and in comb.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind. (Arb.), 385. The Portugales … sayle to America or the lande of Brasile.
1709. Lond. Gaz., No. 4532/3. Loaden … with Brazil-Sugar.
1712. W. Rogers, Voy. (1718), 53. The Portuguese nam’d it Brazile, from the red wood of that name.
1864. Times, 26 Oct., 7/5. Their estimates were insufficient to provide and complete a first-class railway for the Brazils.
1875. Bedford, Sailor’s Pocket-bk., iv. (ed. 2), 108. The Brazil Current is a branch of the Equatorial.
1883. Burton & Cameron, To Gold Coast, I. i. 18. The voyager bound Brazilwards.
4. Brazil-nut: the seed of Bertholletia excelsa (N.O. Lecythidaceæ), a lofty tree which forms large forests in Brazil; the fruit consists of a round wooden capsule, packed with about two dozen of these triquetrous ‘nuts.’
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 116. The Souari … Nuts, or Brazil Nuts of the shops, the kernel of which is one of the most delicious fruits of the nut kind.
1852. Th. Ross, trans. Humboldt’s Trav., II. xxiii. 390. Juvia-trees, which furnish the triangular nuts called in Europe the almonds of the Amazon, or Brazil-nuts.
1864. Bates, Nat. Amazons, viii. 230. Colossal examples of the Brazil nut tree.
Hence Brazilian a. and sb.
c. 1650. in Phenix (1708), II. 364. Those barbarous Brasilians.
1769. Watson, in Phil. Trans., LIX. 380. The Brasilean plants.
1836. Marryat, Pirate, vii. There were … Brazilians.
