Obs. exc. dial. Also 1 breard, briord, 3 breord, 4 brurde, 4–5 brerde, 6 Sc. breird. [OE. brerd brim, margin; cf. OHG. brort, brord prow, margin, lip, also OE. brord point, prick, ON. broddr shaft, pike: see BRAIRD, and BROD.]
The topmost surface or edge; rim, brim, brink.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., John ii. 7. Hiʓ ʓefyldon þa oþ þone brerd [Lindisf. & Rushw. briorde].
c. 1050. Ags. Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 178. Crepido, brerd uel ofer.
c. 1200. Ormin, 14040. And filledenn upp till þe brerd Wiþþ waterr þeȝȝre fetless.
c. 1205. Lay., 23322. From breorde to grunde.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 324. Þe þet nappeð upon helle brerde, he torpleð ofte al in.
1382. Wyclif, Ex. xxxvii. 11. He made to it a goldun brerde.
1424. E. E. Wills (1882), 56. Six saucers of siluere merkid with a sink foil vnder þe brerdez.
c. 1475. Cath. Angl., 42 (MS. A). Brerde [v.r. Brede] of a wessille, labrum, abses.
1596. Declar. etc. Melville’s MS., 279 (Jam.). Has gotten the breird to drink.
a. 1758. Ramsay, Sc. Proverbs (1776), 19 (Jam.). Better hain at the brierd than at the bottom.
1808. Jamieson, s.v. Breird, ‘The brerd of the water’ is … still used in Dumbartonshire for the surface of it.
¶ See also BRAIRD sb.
