[f. BRAND v.]
1. The action of marking with a hot iron, as a surgical operation; or of burning a mark upon a criminal, or an article for sale.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 53. Brondynge, cauterizacio.
1660. R. Coke, Justice Vind., 14. Anything … received into the senses, be it whipping, branding or hanging.
1764. Harmer, Observ., vi. xvi. 261. Whipping and branding with the flower-de-lis among the French.
1846. M’Culloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), I. 631. The gutting … of the herrings, and the branding of the barrels.
1849. Grote, Greece, II. xl. V. 128.
fig.a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Hist. Jas. V., Wks. (1711), 90. It would be an everlasting branding their honour, if timorously … they show their backs to their enemies.
2. attrib., as in branding-corrall, -iron, yard.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 53. Brondynge yren, cauterium.
1583. Golding, Calvin on Deut. xiv. 80. Despisers of God … haue the said bronding yron searing within them.
1863. W. Phillips, Speeches, xi. 259. His broad bosom scarred all over with the branding-iron.
1881. Gentl. Mag., Jan., 64. The branding yard [for cattle].
1885. Pall Mall Gaz., 20 March, 3/2. The cows and calves … are driven into the branding corrall.
