Other forms: brawns
Brawn is physical strength as opposed to cleverness. All brawn and no brain, brute brawn, brains over brawn.
It nearly always appears against brains, and the contrast is doing the work rather than the word itself. Brawn is also a British cold meat set in jelly, made from the head of a pig, which is the older sense and comes from the word for a joint of meat.
1nounbrawnPhysical strength as opposed to cleverness.
“The removal company hired him for his brawn, since he could carry a fridge alone.”
brawn is a strength.
Old French braon meant a slice of meat or a fleshy part, from a Frankish word for roast meat.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰreh₁- — to burn, heat
Proto-Germanic
*brēdô — meat, roast
Frankish
*brādō
Old French
braon — slice of meat, fleshy part, buttock
Middle English
brawne
English, today
brawn
Built from
From Middle English brawne, from Old French braon (“slice of meat, fleshy part, buttock”), from Frankish brādō, brādō, oblique forms of brādō (“roasted meat, ham”), from Proto-Germanic brēdô (“meat, roast”), of uncertain further origin, but possibly from Proto-Indo-European bʰreh₁- (“to burn, heat”). Akin to Old High German brāto (“tender meat”) (German Braten (“roast”)), Old English brǣde, brǣd (“flesh, meat”), Old Norse bráð (“raw meat”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA