bray

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To utter the loud, harsh cry of a donkey.
2. v. To sound loudly and harshly: The foghorn brayed all night.
3. v. To emit (an utterance or a sound) loudly and harshly.
4. n. The loud, harsh cry of a donkey.
5. n. A sound resembling that of a donkey: "an endless bray of pointless jocosity” ( Louis Auchincloss).
6. v. To crush and pound to a fine consistency, as in a mortar.
7. v. To spread (ink) thinly over a surface.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To pound or beat thoroughly, as with a pestle or other instrument; triturate, crush, mix, etc., by beating or any analogous action: as to bray drugs; to bray printers' ink. See brayer.
2. To utter a loud and harsh cry: with reference now especially to the ass, but formerly also to the bull, deer, and other animals, as well as to man.
3. Hence To make a loud, harsh, disagreeable sound.
4. To utter with a loud, harsh sound, like the ass.
5. n. A harsh cry, especially that of an ass; hence, any similar harsh or grating sound.
6. n. A bank or mound of earth used in fortification; a breastwork; a bulwark; specifically, a wall or other work in advance of and covering the gate of a fortress.
7. n. A piece of sloping ground; an acclivity or declivity.
8. n. A clout for a young child. Kersey, 1708.
9. n. In heraldry: Barnacles or twitchers for subduring a horse: used as a bearing.
10. n. [Perhaps a corruption of brake, break.] A bearing similar to the preceding in form, representing a tool used for breaking hemp: sometimes called a hempbray, hemp-brake, or hackle. One or other of these bearings is frequently used in allusive heraldry for families of the name Bray and the like.
11. In cloth-finishing, to pound (woolen cloth) in a soapy scouring-liquor: same as full. See full and fulling.

Wiktionary

1. v. To crush or pound, especially with a mortar.
2. v. Of a donkey, to make its cry.
3. v. Of a camel, to make its cry
4. n. The cry of an ass or donkey.
5. n. The cry of a camel

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To pound, beat, rub, or grind small or fine.
2. v. To utter a loud, harsh cry, as an ass.
3. v. To make a harsh, grating, or discordant noise.
4. v. To make or utter with a loud, discordant, or harsh and grating sound.
5. n. The harsh cry of an ass; also, any harsh, grating, or discordant sound.
6. n. North of Eng. & Scot. A bank; the slope of a hill; a hill. See brae, which is now the usual spelling.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. braying characteristic of donkeys
2. v. laugh loudly and harshly
3. v. reduce to small pieces or particles by pounding or abrading
4. n. the cry of an ass