Brittany

alternative obsolete Britanny

1. A cultural region, historical province, and peninsula in northwest France.First known use 15th c.

   First, will I see the Coronation, / And then to Britanny Ile crosse the Sea, / To effect this marriage, so it please my Lord.

   c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vi]

   1 more example

   So Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon fled away to that part of France called Brittany, where they remained in saftey for many years.

   1905, Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall, Our Island Story, page 35

2. An administrative region of northwest France, including most of the historic region of Brittany.First known use 20th c.
3. obsoletepoeticThe British Isles.First known use 15th–19th c.

   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, “Book IV, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

4. A female given name transferred from the place name, of 1980s and 1990s American usage.

   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 Borrowed from soap opera characters of prominence fifteen years ago, who have since been replaced by spiffy new models: the social-climbing Brittany now an unscrupulous Burke, the generous Pamela a refitted, urbanized Parker.

   1999, Andrew Pyper, chapter 10, in Lost Girls

   2 more examples

   - - - 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?"

   1990, Alice Munro, Friend of My Youth, →ISBN, page 102

   The leading voices of the womanosphere are using a similar strategy. As Brittany Hugoboom put it in an op–ed for the rightwing outlet Quillette: “Conservatives will never win if they imagine themselves as combatants atop defensive battlements, hurling abuse on the mass media. We need to involve ourselves in the creation of pop culture.”

   2025 April 24, Anna Silman, “Now comes the ‘womanosphere’: the anti-feminist media telling women to be thin, fertile and Republican”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

plural Brittanies · alternative obsolete Britanny

1. slangA coward.
2. A gun dog of a particular breed.

   A dish face is not desirable in the Brittany. A dished or upturned muzzle is considered a fault in the Redbone Coonhound.

   2013, Edward M. Gilbert Jr, Patricia H. Gilbert, Encyclopedia of K9 Terminology