bray

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Contents

English [edit]

Pronunciation [edit]

Etymology 1 [edit]

From Middle French braire, from Vulgar Latin bragire, from Gaulish *bragu (compare Middle Irish braigid (“it crashes, explodes”), Breton breugiñ (“to bray”); akin to English break, Latin fragor (“crash”), frangere (“to break”)).

Verb [edit]

bray (third-person singular simple present brays, present participle braying, simple past and past participle brayed)

  1. Of a donkey, to make its cry.
    Whenever I walked by, that donkey brayed at me.
  2. Of a camel, to make its cry.
  3. To make a harsh, discordant sound like a donkey's bray.
    He threw back his head and brayed with laughter.
Translations [edit]
to make the cry of a donkey

Noun [edit]

bray (plural brays)

  1. The cry of an ass or donkey.
  2. The cry of a camel
  3. Any harsh, grating, or discordant sound.
    • Jerrold
      The bray and roar of multitudinous London.
Synonyms [edit]
Translations [edit]
the cry of a donkey

Etymology 2 [edit]

From Old French breier (Modern French broyer).

Verb [edit]

bray (third-person singular simple present brays, present participle braying, simple past and past participle brayed)

  1. (now rare) To crush or pound, especially with a mortar.
    • Bible, Proverbs xxvii. 22
      Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar, […] yet will not his foolishness depart from him.
    • 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, in Kupperman 1988, p. 141:
      Their heads and shoulders are painted red with the roote Pocone brayed to powder, mixed with oyle [...].
  2. (UK, chiefly Yorkshire) By extension, to hit someone or something.
    • 2011, Sarah Hall, Butchers Perfume from The Beautiful Indifference, Faber and Faber (2011), page 25:
      If anything he brayed him all the harder - the old family bull recognising his fighting days were close to over.
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