bratchet

English

Etymology

Scots, from Old French brachet (“bitch, hound”).

Noun

bratchet (plural bratchets)

1. A little brat.
2. Alternative spelling of brachet (“a female hunting hound that hunts by scent; a brach”)
   • 1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Introduction to Canto Second: To the Rev. John Marriot, M.A.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC, page 61:

     And foresters, in green-wood trim, / Lead in the leash the gaze-hounds grim, / Attentive, as the bratchet’s bay / From the dark covert drove the prey, / To slip them as he broke away.

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.