[perh. a corrupt form of F. brèche; cf. It. breccia of same meaning: but see BRASH a.1] A mass or heap of fragments; applied to (a.) loose broken rock forming the highest stratum beneath the soil of certain districts: rubble; (cf. corn-brash); (b.) fragments of crushed ice, hence brash-ice; (c.) refuse boughs or branches, hedge clippings, twigs. Also attrib.

1

a. 1722.  [Implied in BRASHY a.1].

2

1787.  Winter, Syst. Husb., 283. The soil a loam, on a stone brash clay.

3

1837.  Macdougall, trans. Graah’s Greenland, 62. A stream of loose brash-ice proceeding from the ice-blinks.

4

1853.  Kane, Grinnell Exp., xiv. (1856), 102. Icy fragments or ‘brash.’

5

1882.  in Standard, 2 Sept., 2/4. On the light stone brash estates birds are very small and scarce.

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