brisket

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English brusket, of uncertain origin.^[2][3][4] Several dictionaries take it as perhaps from Old Norse brjósk (“cartilage, gristle”),^[5][6][7][8] with the noun suffix -et;^[6][4] Collins calls this origin probable and compares Danish brusk and Norwegian brusk.^[9] The Old Norse word is related to brjóst (“breast”),^[4][10] and Barnhart and Klein also compare Middle High German brūsche (“lump, swelling”) and breast.^[4][11] Etymonline traces the group to Proto-Indo-European *bhreus- (“to swell, sprout”).^[10] The word is the same in sense, and apparently in form, as French bréchet, earlier bruschet and brichet.^[2][12] Hoad takes the English word as probably from an Anglo-Norman variant of the Old French one, itself possibly from the Old Norse word,^[13] and Etymonline allows either source.^[10] The direction of the borrowing is disputed: Littré and Klein derived the French word from English, which the OED thinks unlikely,^[2][11] and Barnhart notes that the French word is widely recorded in western France from 1385 and was more likely borrowed from Scandinavian.^[4] Weekley suggested an irregular diminutive of German Brust (“breast”).^[14] Welsh brysced is borrowed from English.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The breast of an animal: 1338, as brusket, in the account rolls of Durham Abbey.^[3][4] The OED's first quotation is from a vocabulary of about 1450,^[2] and Middle English glossaries render it with the Latin pectusculum.^[3][14]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word named the breast of a slaughtered animal as meat: a London document of 1363 mentions a brisket of roast mutton.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "the breast of an animal".^[15] In Scotland and Yorkshire it was also used of the human chest, from the late 18th century in Fergusson's poems;^[2][16][6] Green's slang dictionary finds the same use in Hogg (1818).^[17] In modern butchery, it names a cut of meat, especially beef, made up of the breast muscles and other tissue with the bones removed.^[18][9]

Timeline

• 1338 – brusket, the breast of an animal, as meat.^[3][4]
• 1587 – in compounds such as brisket-beef and brisket-bone.^[2]
• before 1774 – Scottish, the human breast, in Fergusson.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The breast or lower chest of a four-legged animal.^[9][18][2]
2. A cut of meat, especially beef, from this part: He smoked a whole brisket for the reunion.^[9][18]
3. (dialect) The human breast or chest.^[18][6][16]

Related words

• breast

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
18. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster