Brittany
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Latin Brittania, presumably from Celtic. Compare Britain.
Pronunciation
Proper noun
Brittany
- A region in north-west France. [from 15th c.]
- 1595, William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, part 3, First Folio 1623, Act II, Scene VI:
- First, will I see the Coronation, / And then to Britanny Ile crosse the Sea, / To effect this marriage, so it please my Lord.
- 1595, William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, part 3, First Folio 1623, Act II, Scene VI:
- (obsolete, chiefly poetic) The British Isles. [15th-19th c.]
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.11:
- The noble Thamis […] seem'd to stoupe afore / With bowed backe, by reason of the lode / And auncient heavy burden which he bore / Of that faire City, wherein make abode / So many learned impes, that shoote abrode, / And with their braunches spred all Britany […].
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.11:
- A female given name popular in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s.
- 1990 Alice Munro, Friend of My Youth, ISBN 0679729577, page 102:
- - - - No one has family names. These girls with rooster hair I see on the streets. They pick the names. They're the mothers." "I have a granddaughter named Brittany," Hazel said. " And I have heard of a little girl called Cappuccino." "Cappuccino! Is that true? Why don't they call one Cassaulet? Fettuccini? Alsace-Lorraine?"
- 1999 Andrew Pyper, Lost Girls: Chapter Ten:
- Names of the times. Borrowed from soap opera characters of prominence fifteen years ago, who have since been replaced by spiffy new models: the social-climbing Brittany now an unscrupulous Burke, the generous Pamela a refitted, urbanized Parker.
- 1990 Alice Munro, Friend of My Youth, ISBN 0679729577, page 102:
Related terms
Translations
region of North West France
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female given name