Brae

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /bɹeɪ/

Definitions

1. A hillside or slope, especially one that descends toward a river or valley in Scotland or northern England
2. A sloping stretch of ground descending toward lower terrain, particularly found in Scottish and northern English landscapes
3. The downward-slanting side of a hill that drops toward a watercourse or depression in land

Etymology: The most surprising thing about "brae" is that it is the same word as "brow." Its ancestor meant "eyebrow" or "eyelid," and the leap to a hillside came from the idea of a brow as a raised edge. Old Norse "brá" meant "eyebrow" and "eyelash," and the Norse speakers who settled in northern Britain probably applied it to the brow of a hill, the rise that overhangs the land below it. That Norse word reached English as Middle English "bro" or "bra," meaning the bank of a stream or the raised edge of a ditch or pit. Those senses already pointed toward the slope falling away to water, which is the sense that survived in Scotland, where "brae" now names the steep ground above a river valley. Its relatives show the same origin. Old English "brǣw" and "brēaw" meant "eyelid," and German "Braue" still means "eyebrow." "Brae" is a doublet of "brow" and of the Scots "bree," which kept the forehead and eyebrow senses that "brae" lost.

Synonyms: hill, slope, bank