Forms: 5 brusket(te, 6 Sc. briscat, (7 bysket, 8 Sc. bisket), 7– brisket. [Identical in meaning, and apparently in form, with F. brechet (in Cotgr. bruchet, in 16th c. brichet, 14th c. bruschet, brischet, which Littré derives from the Eng.; but this seems unlikely. The Breton bruchet and Welsh brysced, appear to be adopted from Fr. and Eng., respectively.]
1. The breast of an animal, the part immediately covering the breast-bone. Also, as a joint of meat.
c. 1450. Nominale, in Wr.-Wülcker, 704. Hoc pectusculum, a bruskette.
1483. Cath. Angl., 46. A Brusket, pectusculum.
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot., I. 87. The wricht [had] the neiris and the briscat & maw.
1610. Markham, Masterp., II. lvi. 306. He will be very hollow vpon the bysket towards the fore-boothes.
1611. Cotgr., Ars … the breast, or brisket of a horse.
1709. Addison, Tatler, No. 148, ¶ 1. The Black Prince was a professed Lover of the Brisket.
1769. Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 117. Bone a brisket of beef, and make holes in it with a knife.
1820. Scott, Monast., xvii. It is a hart of grease too, in full season, and three inches of fat on the brisket.
1866. Kingsley, Herew., xv. 204. As shaggy as a stag’s brisket.
1873. E. Smith, Foods, 48.
b. Sc. The human breast.
1789. Fergusson, Poems (1796), II. 167 (Jam.). Their glancin een and bisket bare.
1790. Morison, Poems, 15 (Jam.). Wi’ kilted coats, White legs and brisket bare.
2. attrib., as in brisket-beef, -bone.
1587. Turberv., Trag. T. (1837), 37. The brisket bone.
1637. B. Jonson, Sad Sheph., I. ii. The brisket bone, upon the shoon Of which a little gristle grows.
1697. Dampier, Voy. (1729), I. 302. Their flesh is as hard as Brisket Beef.
