Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Solid and well-developed muscles, especially of the arms and legs.
- n. Muscular strength and power.
- n. Chiefly British The meat of a boar.
- n. Headcheese.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Boar's flesh; the flesh of the boar or of swine, collared so as to squeeze out much of the fat, boiled, and pickled.
- n. A boar.
- n. The flesh of a muscular part of the body: as, the brawn of the arm, thigh, etc.
- n. Well-developed muscles; muscular strength.
- n. Figuratively, the arm: from its muscles or strength.
- n. Head-cheese.
Wiktionary
- n. Strong muscles or lean flesh, especially of the arm, leg or thumb.
- n. Physical strength; muscularity.
- n. chiefly UK head cheese; a terrine made from the head of a pig or calf; originally boar's meat.
- v. transitive Make fat, especially of a boar.
- v. intransitive Become fat, especially of a boar.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete A muscle; flesh.
- n. Full, strong muscles, esp. of the arm or leg, muscular strength; a protuberant muscular part of the body; sometimes, the arm.
- n. The flesh of a boar; also, the salted and prepared flesh of a boar.
- n. obsolete A boar.
WordNet 3.0
- n. possessing muscular strength
Etymologies
- Middle English brawne, from Old French braon ("slice of meat, fleshy part, buttock"), from Frankish *brādon, accusative form of *brādo ("roasted meat, ham"), from Proto-Germanic *brēdô (“meat, roast”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhre- (“to burn, heat”), from Proto-Indo-European *bureue- (“to boil, bubble, burn”). Akin to Old High German brāto ("tender meat") (German Braten ("roast")), Old English brǣd ("flesh, meat"), Old Norse bráð ("raw meat"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, muscle, from Old French braon, meat, of Germanic origin; see bhreu- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The major danger to a post-industrial society that depends more on brains than brawn is if it suddenly gets really stupid (that doesn't just apply to our financial woes).”
The Huffington Post: Robert Teitelman: On the nostalgia for manufacturing
“Upon the second period, that which I call the brawn in his life, these exercises will not permit me long to dwell.”
Abraham Lincoln: The Just Magistrate, the Representative Statesman, the Practical Philanthropist
“People think in farming community you don't need a brain, only brawn, which is why Gandhi said you must marry intellect and labor.”
The Wall Street Journal: Questions and Answers: M.S. Swaminathan
“Thick-necked and moon-faced, he looked like an avuncular butcher, but behind the brawn was a scholar who spoke fluent French and German; he could talk knowledgeably of military history from the conquests of Alexander to the Arab campaigns documented in T.E. Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom.”
“During the Middle Ages, wild boar—also known as brawn—crowned the Christmas feast.”
“Of our tame boars we make brawn, which is a kind of meat not usually known to strangers (as I take it), otherwise would not the swart”
“Of our tame boars we make brawn, which is a kind of meat not usually known to strangers (as I take it), otherwise would not the swart Rutters and French cooks, at the loss of Calais (where they found great store of this provision almost in every house), have attempted with ridiculous success to roast, bake, broil, and fry the same for their masters, till they were better informed.”
Of Cattle Kept for Profit. Chapter XII. [1577, Book III., Chapter 8; 1587, Book III., Chapter 1
“Abusers use their "brawn" to over power women and make themselves feeeeel high and mighty.”
“There's a great deli near me that stocks it, otherwise known as 'brawn'.”
“The lift had come back up and the 'brawn' and the nurse took it.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘brawn’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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hunting
crudely, unequivocal, obsolete, obscure, overtly, misdeed, shack, inherent, outcry, hefty, composed, poised and 319 more...
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buttocks
words for buttocks and anything
to do with buttockshiney, heiney, nates, hindquarters, bum, backside, behind, bottom, breech, bunny, butt, can and 160 more...
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Mobying Along
looks like there's not an open Moby Dick list. So now there is.
hypos, Manhattoes, circumambulate, mole, grapnels, bowsprit, asphaltic, mazy, tranced, cataract, ungraspable, judgmatically and 227 more...
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Vocab
Words that I come across, and go blank, or want to clarify.
nefarious, edifice, malevolent, ostensible, folderol, bauble, livid, amnesty, calculus, saddlery, maisonette, cuisse and 423 more...
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A Provincial Glossary, 1787
A list of provincial English words that appear in Francis Grose's A Provincial Glossary, with a Collection of Local Proverbs and Popular Superstitions. London, MDCCLXXXVII. Printed for S. Hooper, N...
tharky, velling, cadma, whinnock, caingel, giglet, gill-houter, leasing, leech-way, dellfin, underwood, dilvered and 193 more...
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ulyssean
... as in "by James Joyce"
stately, plump, aloft, gurgling, untonsured, chrysostomos, jowl, parapet, jesuit, indigestion, scutter, noserag and 688 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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Daily
Daily Vocab List
lull, pious, lurid, objurgate, insurgent, lewd, patio, onus, lampoon, geisha, larceny, maim and 206 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, B
bloviate, bejesus, brouhaha, behoove, bodacious, bamboozle, banshee, bub, bolus, blob, bubbly, bleb and 414 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2253 more...
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What's next here?
thunderhead, thundercloud, cumulus, cumulonimbus, fibrous, hazy, glaciated, cirrus, nimbus, meteorology, fahrenheit, thermoscope and 285 more...
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Desserts of Random Palavery
Another of my Random Palavery lists, still an eclectic listing of terms that catch my eye and ear. It can't be helped. I am, (as a former partner phrased it) a word-bird.
chablis, ervy, keek, armiger, argand lamp, arblast, milch-cow, cow-calf units, durrus, tom noddy, low-bell, cargo cult and 139 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for brawn.
knitandpurl "The islanders would often ask me about the food where I came from, so once I used several cuttlefish mushrooms to fashion for them the fare on the table of a Czech pub, with plates of goulash and dumplings, a smaller plate with brawn, a basket of bread rolls, several half-litres of beer and glasses of rum, adding while I was at it, an open pack of cigarettes and an ashtray with cigarette ends in it."
- The Golden Age by Michal Ajvaz, translated by Andrew Oakland, p 141 of the Dalkey Archive paperback Jun 13, 2011
bilby Head? Brain and brawn. Jun 27, 2009
hernesheir (n): Yorkshire dialect word for a molded, cold meat preparation made from a boiled pig’s head. Jun 26, 2009
brtom -- They buy one and fourpenceworth of brawn and four slices of panloaf at the north city dining rooms in Marlborough street from Miss Kate Collins, proprietress...
Joyce, Ulysses, 7 Jan 1, 2007