brachet

plural brachets · alternative bratchet

1. obsoleteA female hunting hound that hunts by scent; a brach.

   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

   1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter V, in Le Morte Darthur, book III

   2 more examples

   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.

   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

   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.

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