braie

Forms

braie f (plural braies)^[1] Mostly plural, braies; older spellings braye and brayes, and the form brailles.^[2][3] Old French also had a monosyllabic plural brais.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin brāca (“breeches”), mostly used in the plural brācae.^[5][6][7][4] The Latin word is probably from Gaulish braca,^[5][6][7] since the Romans, who wore loose unsewn garments, came to know trousers through the Gauls; mocked at first, the garment and its name spread everywhere.^[5][6] Wiktionary derives the Gaulish word from Proto-Germanic *brōks (“breeches”).^[1]

Cognate with Italian brache, Spanish bragas, Portuguese bragas and Old Occitan braga.^[8][5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in 1172–1174 for the breeches worn by men;^[5][7] Littré's earliest quotations come from a 12th-century poem on Thomas the Martyr, which speaks of braies de haire, hair-cloth breeches, under fine linen ones.^[4]

Semantic evolution

After chausses replaced braies, the word survived for trousers only in the dialects of Normandy, Brittany and the south.^[5][6] The singular was used for a baby's nappy from 1680, a sense now gone.^[5][3] Old phrases are porter les braies, of a wife who rules the household, and s'en tirer les braies nettes, to get out of a bad business unharmed.^[2][4]

From the 17th century, by analogy with the garment's protective role, the word was used in several trades: the beam on the floor of a windmill (1694), the stiff paper with which printers covered the frisket of their press (1771), the iron band round the handle of a forge hammer, and in shipbuilding a tarred cloth nailed over openings to keep water out.^[5][2][4] The windmill sense is behind embrayer.^[6][5]

Timeline

• 1172–1174 – First record, for breeches.^[5]
• 1680 – Richelet records the singular for a baby's nappy.^[3][5]
• 1694 – Thomas Corneille records it for the beam of a windmill.^[6][5]
• 1771 – A printer's term.^[5]
• 1858 – The derivative embrayer.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (usually plural, historical) breeches, loose or close-fitting trousers worn by the Gauls and other ancient peoples and by medieval peasants.^[2][9][3]
2. (dated) A baby's nappy.^[2][3][4]
3. (nautical) A piece of tarred canvas or leather covering the gaps round a mast or pump.^[2][4]
4. (milling) A beam on the floor of a windmill that takes weight off the millstones.^[2][4]
5. (printing) A sheet of stiff paper cut to mask the parts not to be printed.^[2][4]
6. (fishing) A funnel-shaped net set at the shore.^[2][4]

Word family

• embrayer

Related words

• braguette
• brague
• Latin brāca

Usage notes

Littré gives a separate braie, a wall used as an outwork in fortification (compare fausse-braie), from Low Latin braca “dyke, embankment”, whose origin he calls unknown;^[4] the TLFi instead treats this rampart as a figurative use of the garment, from its protective role.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
3. ^ a b c d e Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c d e f g Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert