Etymology: Middle English brake , not found in northern writers, said by Turner (1562) to be the equivalent of the northern braken : see bracken n.¹ It was possibly a shortened form: perhaps due to braken being assumed by southern speakers to be a plural: compare chick , chicken , also brack n.⁴ But it may also possibly be a parallel form from the same root. brake n.² appears too late for us to assume that this word could in any way be derived from it; though in recent use they are probably often assumed to be the same word, as if the ‘brake’ were a plant that grows in ‘brakes’ or vice versa.

Etymology: compare Middle Low German brake , connected with breken to break v., and originally meaning tree-stumps or broken branches, but also used (especially in the phrase busk unde brake, bush and brake) in the exact sense of the English word. See Schiller-Lübben. The historical relation of the English to the Low German word is unknown.

Etymology: Identical with Middle Low German brake , or Old Dutch braeke , modern Dutch braak a flax-brake (whence French braquer to brake flax), < Dutch breken to break v. The resemblance of the noun to the cognate English verb apparently gave rise to the extension of sense by which brake became a generic name of implements used for breaking or crushing. The form brakene in Promp. Parv. may possibly represent the plural of the Middle Low German or Dutch word.

Etymology: Perhaps < Old French brac, oblique case of bras an arm; compare French braquer le timon to turn the rudder, braquer un canon to point a cannon.

Etymology: Of uncertain origin: possibly identical with brake n.⁴ (compare French braquer un chariot ‘to turn, set, or bend a chariot on the right or left hand’ Cotgrave); more probably < Old Dutch braeke (see brake n.³), occurring in the sense of a nose-ring for a draught ox; or extended use of brake n.³, due to influence of the verb break v. (a horse).

Etymology: Origin, possible connection with brake n.⁵, and sequence of senses uncertain.

Etymology: Etymology uncertain; probably an application of the sense of ‘lever’ (brake n.⁴), or perhaps of that of ‘curb’ (brake n.⁵); since French frein, Italian freno, literally ‘bridle’, are used in this sense. This being so, the spelling break would be due to ‘popular etymology’, because it ‘breaks’ the motion.

Etymology: ? < break v.

Etymology: < brake n.³

Etymology: < brake n.⁶ 3.

Etymology: Compare brack n.⁵: perhaps < early Italian bracare, or braccare: Florio (1611) has ‘Braccare, to bracke or mount ordinance’; and ‘Bracare, to breech; also to bind about with iron plates; also to stocke a piece’.

Etymology: < brake n.⁴

Etymology: < brake n.⁷

Etymology: perhaps representing an unrecorded Old English *bracian , < bræc , which occurs in the sense of ‘phlegm, mucus, saliva’; compare Old Dutch braeken , Middle Low German and modern Dutch braken to vomit; allied to break v. (compare German sich brechen).