Etymology

brach

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Today it means: Originally, a synonym of scent hound (“a hunting dog that tracks prey using its sense of smell rather than by its vision”); later, any female hound; a bitch hound. Full definition →

Middle English brache ← Old French brachès ← Old High German braccho
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brach · noun1

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*bʰreHg-“to have a strong odour, to smell”
  2. Proto-Germanic · derived from*brēkijaną
  3. Old High German · derived frombraccho
  4. Old French · derived frombrachès
  5. Middle English · inherited frombrache“hunting dog, especially a small scent hound; female dog, bitch (?); lapdog (?)”
  6. English todaybrach

From Late Middle English brache (“hunting dog, especially a small scent hound; female dog, bitch (?); lapdog (?)”), probably a back-formation from Old French brachès, brachez, the plural of brachet (“female scent hound”), a diminutive of brac, from Old High German braccho, bracco, bracko (“scent hound”) (modern German Bracke); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Germanic *brēkijaną (compare Latin fragrō (“to emit a smell”), Middle High German bræhen (“to smell (something); to use the sense of smell; to have a (bad) smell”)), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreHg- (“to have a strong odour, to smell”). cognates * Italian bracco * Medieval Latin bracco * Occitan brac * Spanish braco

brach · noun2

Clipping of brach(iopod).

Words from the same roots

Proto-Indo-European*bʰreHg- all →

braybran

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.