a. arch. Forms: 5 brende, 5–8 brended, 7 breended, 6– brinded. [Primary form app. brended, whence on one side BRANDED, q.v., on the other brinded. Brende, which occurs in Lydgate, is identical with one of the contemporary forms of burnt, burned (see BURN v.); nevertheless, taken with the fuller brended, it points to a secondary vb. brend-en, a possible derivative of brand ‘burning, brand.’ The sense appears to be ‘marked as by burning’ or ‘branding.’ Prof. Skeat compares Icel. bröndóttr brindled, f. brand fire-brand.] Of a tawny or brownish color, marked with bars or streaks of a different hue; also gen. streaked, spotted; brindled.
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems, 202. On them she wyl have a bonde, As weel of bayard as of brende [rhyme-wd. rende] And yit for sorelle she wyl stonde.
1496. Bk. St. Albans, Fysshynge, 28. A grete brended flye that bredith in pathes of medowes.
1589. Greene, Menaph. (Arb.), 86. Ah, Doron … thou art as white As is my mothers Calfe, or brinded Cow.
1605. Shaks., Macb., IV. i. 1. Thrice the brinded Cat hath mew’d.
1611. Cotgr., Quatroillé, diuersified, pide, or breended, streaked with one colour vpon another.
1621. Markham, Prev. Hunger (1655), 54. Your brended Cattell haue euer the goodliest Heads.
1667. Milton, P. L., VII. 466. The Tawnie Lion … Rampant shakes his Brinded main.
1717. Tickell, Epist., Wks. (1807), 117. Thy brinded boars may slumber undismay’d.
1774. Johnson, West. Isl., Wks. X. 416. They have a race of brinded greyhounds.
1820. Shelley, Witch Atl., vii. The brinded lioness led forth her young.
