† briniebrynien.

Etymology: Middle English brunie (ü ), brynie , brinie , brenie , < Old Norse brynja (Danish brynie , Swedish brynja ), corresponding to Old English byrne < *brynne , Old High German brunja , brunna (Middle High German brunje , brünje , brünne , also modern German) corslet, Gothic brunjô breast-plate < Old Germanic *brunjôn- . Whether the latter was adopted < Old Slavonic bronja ‘coat of mail’, or the Old Slavonic from Germanic, or both from a common source (compare Old Irish bruinne ‘breast’) is uncertain; the word is not connected with burn v.¹ The Germanic word was adopted in late Latin or Romanic: compare medieval Latin brunia , -ea , bronia , Old French brunie , bronie , bruigne , brugne , brogne , bruine , broine , broune , Provençal bronha , broingna . The Middle English brunie corresponds exactly to the Norman-French form, but the phonology of the parallel brinie , brenie , points to the Scandinavian as the original source. The regular Middle English form from the Old English word would have been byrn (see burne n.), and from Scandinavian brynie : through contact of these and metathesis of r , there are also found the forms bryn n.¹, and byrnie n.