ppl. a. [f. BRANCH sb. and v. + -ED.]

1

  1.  Provided with branches. lit. and fig. (Cf. senses of the sb.; often combined with numeral or other adjs., as double-, five-, many-branched.)

2

c. 1350.  Will. Palerne, 753. Vnder a tri appeltre … þat was braunched ful brode.

3

1567.  Studley, Seneca’s Hippolytus (1581), 56. The Elme displayes his braunched armes.

4

1668.  Wilkins, Real Char., 157. A double branched brow-antler.

5

1841.  Mrs. Browning, House Clouds, 29. A spacious hall … Branched with corridors sublime.

6

1877.  R. J. More, Under the Balkans, 211. On the breast was placed a lighted triple-branched wax taper.

7

  † 2.  Divided, distributed; descended (from a family or an ancestor). (Cf. BRANCH v. 3–5.) Obs.

8

1429.  Pol. Poems (1859), II. 141. Royal braunched, descended from two lynes.

9

  b.  Adorned with a figured pattern in embroidery, gilding, chasing, etc. Cf. BRANCH v. 6.

10

1509.  Hawes, Past. Pleas., XXVII. xxxii. The rofe was braunched curiously Of the beten golde both gaye and glorious.

11

1552.  H. W. King, Invent. Ch. Goods (1885), 15. A cope of blew and Braunched Damaske … xxs.

12

1601.  Shaks., Twel. N., II. v. 54. Calling my Officers about me, in my branch’d Veluet gowne.

13

1703.  Lond. Gaz., No. 3895/4. Seven Silver Spoons … branched on the tops.

14

  3.  Hence in Arch. branched work, the carved foliage on friezes and monuments.

15