bray

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“
The more they bray, the more they pay.

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Definitions (27)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (7)

  1. intransitive verb To utter the loud, harsh cry of a donkey.
  2. intransitive verb To sound loudly and harshly: The foghorn brayed all night.
  3. transitive verb To emit (an utterance or a sound) loudly and harshly.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (11)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (5)

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Examples (50)

  • With a wild bray, an ass ran into the pit, its hooves flying with wild kicks as it tore around the sides of the arena The crowd exploded in laughter as Turg swelled up, his hands closed up in fists. —  VANCE MOORE
  • The roars became less loud--less frequent--they thinned down into half-moaning noises something like the end of a donkey's bray, and lastly they stopped altogether, or rather faded into growling or purring sounds. —  Chatterbox, 1906
  • The more asinine the speaker the louder is his bray, and the more surely do we encounter him in social and domestic haunts. —  The Secret of a Happy Home (1896)
  • It was like the ass in the lion's skin--he would bray, and all would be betrayed. —  A Book of the Play Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character
  • Though we have discovered the circulation of the blood, men die as of yore; oxen graze, sheep bleat, babies bawl, asses bray--loud and lusty as the day before the flood. —  Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2)
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

blare ·  whoop ·  clangor ·  raucous ·  strident ·  hoot ·  rasp ·  clang ·  ear-splitting ·  clamor ·  wail ·  jangle

Used in the same contextWord Family

bray:   braying
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (8)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English braien, from Old French braire, from Vulgar Latin *bragere, of Celtic origin.
  2. Middle English braien, from Old French breier, of Germanic origin; see bhreg- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (6)

  1. from Middle English brayen, from Old French brayer, breier, brehier, French broyer = Provencal Spanish bregar, pound bray, prob. from Middle High German brechen = English break, q. v.
  2. from Middle English brayen, from Old French braire, from Middle Latin bragire, bray, bragare, cry, squall, prob. of Celtic origin: see brag and brawl.
  3. from ME bray, a loud cry, also brayt, from Old French brait = Provencal brai; from the verb.
  4. from Old French braie, a kind of bastion, a dike or bank, from Middle Latin braca, a dike or bank, same as Old French braie, from Middle Latin braga, part of a river confined between dikes to facilitate the catching of fish.
  5. =Scots brae, bra, from Middle English braye, also bra, bro, etc., from Gaelic braigh, the upper part of any thing or place (braigh duthcha, the higher parts of a district; braigh Lochabar, the braes of Lochaber, etc.), also braidh = Irish braid, upper part, height; cf. Welsh brig, top, summit, bre, hill, peak, = Anglo-Saxon beorh, English barrow, a hill, mound: see barrow.
  6. Also written brey; from French braye, “a close linnen breek or under-slop, … also a clout,” plural brayes, “short and close breeches, drawers, or under-hose of linnen, &c.,” … also “barnacles for a horse's nose” (Cotgrave), modern F. braies, breeches, from Latin bracæ, breeches: see bracæ, brail, and breech.
 

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