brachet

See also: Brachet and brächet

English

Etymology

From Middle English brachet, from Old French brachet, a diminutive of Old Occitan brac, from Frankish.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɹæt͡ʃɪt/
• Rhymes: -ætʃɪt
• Hyphenation: brach‧et

Noun

brachet (plural brachets)

1. (obsolete) A female hunting hound that hunts by scent; a brach.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter V, in Le Morte Darthur, book III:

     Ryght so as they sat ther came rennyng in a whyte hert in to the halle and a whyte brachet next hym and xxx couple of black rennyng houndes cam after with a greete crye

     Right so as they sat, there came running a white hart into the hall, and a white brachet next to him, and sixty black hounds came running after with a great cry

   • 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.

   • 1987, Gene Wolfe, chapter VI, in The Urth of the New Sun, 1st US edition, New York: Tor Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 38:

     I followed it as well as I could, I who have so often boasted of my memory now sniffing along for what seemed a league at least like a brachet and ready almost to yelp for joy at the thought of a place I knew, after so much emptiness, silence, and blackness.

Alternative forms

• bratchet

Anagrams

• Bachert, Chabert, batcher, braceth, rebatch

Old French

Alternative forms

• braquet

Etymology

Diminutive of Old French and Old Occitan brac (“hound”), from Old High German and Frankish *brakko, from Proto-Germanic *brak (“dog that hunts by scent”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreh₂g- (“to smell”). Cognate with Old High German braccho.

Noun

brachet oblique singular, m (oblique plural brachez or brachetz, nominative singular brachez or brachetz, nominative plural brachet)

1. hunting dog trained to follow the scent of an animal

Descendants

• → English: brachet

References

• “brachet”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014
• Weekley, Ernest (2013): An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English