Other forms: brays
To bray is to make the loud harsh cry of a donkey. Two notes, in and out, carrying across a whole valley.
It is the donkey's own word, and no other animal quite brays. Applied to people it is unkind, since a braying laugh is loud, harsh and pleased with itself, and the phrase braying crowd suggests a mob. That use is common in political writing. As a noun a bray is a single such cry. It has nothing to do with the town of Bray or with the verb to bray meaning to crush, which is a rare survival.
The donkey's bray has an indelicate ancestry. The Proto-Indo-European root behind it meant to break wind or to stink, and Celtic and Latin handed it on to French as braire, to cry out.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰreHg- — to flatulate; to stink
Proto-Celtic
*brageti
cel-gau
*bragu
Vulgar Latin
*bragiō
Old French
brai
Middle English
brayen
English, today
bray
Built from
The verb is derived from Middle English brayen, brai, bray, braye (“of a person or animal: to vocalize loudly; of the weather: to make a loud sound, howl, roar”), from Old French brai, braire (“of an animal: to bray; of a person: to cry or shout out”) (modern French braire (“of an animal: to bray; of a person: to shout; to cry, weep”)), possibly from Vulgar Latin bragiō, from cel-gau bragu (compare Breton breugiñ (“to bray”), brammañ (“to flatulate”), kw bramma, brabma (“to flatulate”), Old Irish braigid (“to flatulate”)), from Proto-Celtic brageti, bragyeti (“to flatulate”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰreHg- (“to flatulate; to stink”); cognate with Latin fragrō (“to smell”). Alternatively, the word could be from a gem source, ultimately from Proto-Germanic brekaną (“to break”), and cognate with frangere (“to break, shatter”). The noun is derived from the verb, or from Middle English brai, brait (“shriek; outcry”), from Old French brai, brait (“a cry”), from braire (“of an animal: to bray; of a person: to shout; to cry, weep”); see above.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire
First appears in chapter 36 of A Man Called Ove.
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