Etymology: Old English brǽw , bréaw , Anglian *bréw, brég, bréag, masculine ‘eye-lid’; according to Sievers, an i- stem, Old Germanic type *bræ̂ˈwi- , bræ̂ˈhwi- ; compare Old Frisian (âg-)brê , neuter: the corresponding word elsewhere is a feminine â- stem, Old Saxon brâwa , brâha (Low German braue , Middle Dutch brauwe , Dutch wenkbraauw eye-brow), Old High German brâwa , brâa , brâ , eye-lash (Middle High German brâwe , brâ , German (augen-)braue eye-brow, also -braune , a modern corruption from the plural brâwen , brauen , braun ), Old Norse brá , brǫ́ eye-lid < Old Germanic *bræ̂wâ , < *bræ̂hwâ . The Gothic *brêwa , *brêhwa is not preserved; but compare brahw ‘blink, twinkle’, in brahwa augins ‘in the twinkling of an eye’. This points to a radical sense ‘blinker, twinkler’ as a name of the eye-lid (or eye-lash), in which case this word cannot well be referred to the same root as brow n.¹, Old Germanic brû- ‘eye-brow’, as generally assumed. Yet the two words curiously interchanged in use in different languages, and at different periods; and in continental West Germanic the brû- forms were lost, and their place supplied by forms < bræ̂wâ- . The original sense of brû- was ‘eye-brow’; in Old English extended and transferred to ‘eye-lash’, so that ‘eye-brow’ was distinguished as ofer-brú . The original sense of bræ̂wâ- was apparently ‘eye-lid’, as in Old Norse and Old English, but in Old High German restricted to ‘eye-lash’, and thence subsequently extended and transferred to ‘eye-brow’ (originally obara brâwa ), the sense ‘eye-lash’ being brought down to modern times by the compound wint-brâwa , Middle High German wint-brâ , winbrâ , modern German wimper . Old English had brú = eye-lash (cilium ), bræ̂w , brég = eye-lid (palpebra ); by the 13th cent. bru , brouw passed to the sense ‘eye-lid’, and brew (breow , breȝ , bree ) to that of ‘eye-brow’; the latter sense was retained by bree in the north, after it had in turn been taken up by brow in the south. From 15th to 17th centuries bree was used by some southern writers as = ‘eye-lash’, a curious reversion to what had been the original Old English sense of brú , brow n.¹ (The Old Norse cognate brǭ gave brae n.) (The parallelism of *brû- and *bræ̂wâ- is further seen in the fact that ‘eye-brows’ was expressed in Old High German by obarun brâwa, ubarbrâwo (Graff III. 315), in Old English by oferbrúa, and in Middle English uvere breyhes, briȝes aboue þe eiȝes, aboue breghis. For the phonetic explanation of the late West Saxon form bréaw < brǽw, see Sievers Ags. Gram. (ed. 2) §112, 118.)

Etymology: Derivation obscure: the Middle English bre modern Scots bree , may be the same as the earlier Middle English bri , Old English brig , bríw , but the phonology is not clear, and the sense is not quite identical. (Bre might however represent *bréow , a possible variant of bríw ; compare níw , néow , etc.) Old English bríw , bríg (masculine) = Old High German brîo (brîw- ), brî (Middle High German brîe , brî , modern German brei ), Middle Low German brîg , brî , Middle Dutch brî , all masculine (Dutch brij feminine) < Old Germanic *brîwo-z : the Gothic *breiws is not exemplified, and the word is not in Scandinavian. It cannot well be referred to brū , root of brew v., nor to bræ̂-, brê-, to warm; Kluge suggests a root bri to cook.

Etymology: perhaps an irregular variant of breeze n.² 4: compare bree n.⁴

Etymology: < brees, variant of breeze n.¹, taken as a plural.

Etymology: Old English brégan to terrify, frighten ( < bróegan) < bróga fear, terror; compare Old High German bruogen.