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That which braces, binds, or makes firm; a band or bandage.

arval stage of certain starfishes, having a bilateral structure, and swimming by means of bands of vibrating cilia.

A hillside; a slope; a bank; a hill. [Scot.] Burns.

A plait, band, or narrow fabric formed by intertwining or weaving together different strands. A braid of hair composed of two different colors twined together. Scott.

A young salmon or parr, in the stage in which it has transverse black bands, as if burned by a gridiron.

A brave person; one who is daring. The star-spangled banner, O,long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. F. S. Key.

A daring villain; a bandit; one who sets law at defiance; a professional assassin or murderer. Safe from detection, seize the unwary prey. And stab, like bravoes, all who come this way. Churchill.

A bank; the slope of a hill; a hill. See Brae, which is now the usual spelling. [North of Eng. & Scot.] Fairfax.

To destroy the financial credit of; to make bankrupt; to ruin. With arts like these rich Matho, when he speaks, Attracts all fees, and little lawyers breaks. Dryden.

A wave breaking into foam against the shore, or against a sand bank, or a rock or reef near the surface. The breakers were right beneath her bows. Longfellow.

See Breastband.

fastened there; smallclothes. -- To wear the breeches, to usurp the authority of the husband; -- said of a wife. [Colloq.]

An excited or ruffed state of feeling; a flurry of excitement; a disturbance; a quarrel; as, the discovery produced a breeze. [Colloq.] Land breeze, a wind blowing from the land, generally at night. -- Sea breeze, a breeze or wind blowing, generally in the daytime, from the sea.

A fly of various species, of the family Tabanidæ, noted for buzzing about animals, and tormenting them by sucking their blood; -- called also horsefly, and gadfly. They are among the largest of two- winged or dipterous insects. The name is also given to different species of botflies. [Written also breese and brize.]…

ver or other water course, or over a chasm, railroad, etc., to make a passageway from one bank to the other.

A lawless fellow who lives by plunder; one of a band of robbers; especially, one of a gang living in mountain retreats; a highwayman; a freebooter. Giving them not a little the air of brigands or banditti. Jeffery.

The edge, margin, or border of a steep place, as of a precipice; a bank or edge, as of a river or pit; a verge; a border; as, the brink of a chasm. Also Fig. "The brink of vice." Bp. Porteus. "The brink of ruin." Burke. The plashy brink of weedy lake. Bryant.

A tumult; a noisy quarrel; a disturbance; a brawl; contention; discord, either between individuals or in the state. I will own that there is a haughtiness and fierceness in human nature which will which will cause innumerable broils, place men in what situation you please. Burke.

ancially; incapable of redeeming promises made, or of paying debts incurred; as, a broken bank; a broken tradesman.

Having the spirits depressed or crushed by grief or despair. She left her husband almost broken-hearted. Macaulay.