Sc. Also brooze, bruise, bruse. [The suggestion of Jamieson that the word is the same as brose or brewis is absurdly impossible.] A race on horseback, or on foot, by the young men present at country weddings in the north, the course being from the place where the marriage ceremony is performed (in Scotland the bride’s former home) to the bridegroom’s house. Hence to ride, run, win the broose. (The prize is usually a colored silk handkerchief.)
It is understood to be a survival from primitive marriage customs: probably the whole wedding cortége formerly conveyed the bride at full gallop to the bridegroom’s house; but now the race is kept up by the young men only, the rest of the procession following at leisure. Cf. BRIDELOP, and the Teutonic synonyms there mentioned.
1786. Burns, To Auld Mare, ix. At Brooses thou had ne’er a fellow, For pith and speed.
1788. R. Galloway, Poems, 156 (Jam.). To think to ride or rin the bruise Wi’ them ye name.
1845. New Statist. Acc. Scotl., VI. 306. The broose or contest who shall first reach the house of the bridegroom is very keenly maintained.
1863. J. Brown, Horæ Subs. (ed. 3), 31. You know what riding the bruse means.
