[ME. brake, not found in northern writers, said by Turner (1562) to be the equivalent of the northern braken: see BRACKEN. It was possibly a shortened form: perh. due to braken being assumed by southern speakers to be a plural: cf. chick, chicken, also BRACK sb.4 But it may also possibly be a parallel form from the same root. BRAKE sb.2 appears too late for us to assume that this word could in any way be derived from it; though in recent use they are probably often assumed to be the same word, as if the ‘brake’ were a plant that grows in ‘brakes’ or vice versa.]
1. Fern, bracken.
c. 1325. W. de Biblesw., in Wright, Voc., 156. Feugere, a brake.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 47. Brake, herbe or ferme.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. A ij b. Filix femina … is the commen ferne or brake whiche the Norther men call a braken.
1669. W. Simpson, Hydrol. Chym., 189. Those who burn brakes for their ashes.
1768. Tucker, Lt. Nat., II. 685. Self-conceit grows … out of ignorance, as heath and brakes do from barren sands.
1842. Tennyson, Day Dr., Sleep Pal., vi. A wall of green Close-matted, bur and brake and briar.
1862. Ansted, Channel Isl., II. viii. (ed. 2), 181. The common brake (pteris aquilina).
2. Comb. and Attrib., as brake-bush, -fern, -root; brake of the wall, the common polypody.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 47. Brakebushe or fernebrake, filicetum.
1561. Hollybush, Hom. Apoth., 39 a. Take … sixe unces of the rotes of Brak of the wal or Polipody.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 83. The making of Glass, of a certain Sand and Brake-Roots.
