Forms: 3–4 broys, brouwys: see BROWIS; 5 brewes, brus, 6 brewish, -ys, brues, -isse, -yse, 6–7 brewes, -ess, -esse, brewz, 7 brewice, -isse, bruesse, 8 brews, 9 dial. breawis, 6– brewis. [ME. browes, brouwys, brewes, etc., a. OF. brouetz, in 13th c. broez, nominative of brouet, broet ‘soup made with broth of meat,’ dim. of OF. bro, breu: see BROWET, of which this word is thus a doublet. It is possible that the change of browes to brewes, brewis was influenced by some popular association with OE. briw, pl. briwas soup, pottage (see BREE), or even with the vb. BREW. Cf. BROWIS, BROSE.]
1. Broth, liquor in which beef and vegetables have been boiled; sometimes also thickened with bread or meal. Now chiefly dial., and applied very variously in different localities.
[1300–1525. see BROWIS.]
1526. in Househ. Ord. (1790), 174. Venison in brewz or mult, 1 mess, 4d.
1530. Palsgr., 201/2. Brewes, brovet.
1599. A. M., trans. Gabelhouer’s Bk. Physic, 250/2. Cut a chese to shivers, and make therof cheese brues.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 126. Fatned with Scotish pottage and brewesse.
c. 1622. Fletcher, Prophetess, I. iii. 27. What an inundation of brewisse shall I swim in?
a. 1650. MS. Bodl. 30. 13 b. The verie bruise of divinitie, fatt and glorious.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (Hotten), 297. The Liquor of the Meat, which they call Brews.
1822. Scott, Nigel, x. Mountains of beef, and oceans of brewis, as large as Highland hills and lochs.
1869. Blackmore, Lorna D., vi. (ed. 12), 35. She can’t stir a pot of brewis.
1874. Mrs. Whitney, We Girls, vi. 130. One [fryingpan] was set on with the milk for the brewis.
2. ‘Bread soaked in boiling fat pottage, made of salted meat’ (J.).
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 53. Browesse [1499 browes], adipatum.
1554. Becon, Comfort. Epist. (1844), 208. Eating beef and brewis knuckle-deep.
1580. Baret, Alv., B 1225. Brewis, offulæ adipatæ.
1588. Marprel. Epist., 41. The B. of Glocester … affirmed that beefe and brewesse had made him a papist.
1594. Lyly, M. Bombie, III. iv. 113. A stately peece of beefe … in great pompe sitting upon a cushion of white brewish.
a. 1625. Fletcher, Mad Lover, II. i. 8. Beefe we can beare before us linde with Brewes.
1680. Shadwell, Woman-Capt., I. Wks. 1720, III. 347. A greasy serving-man … whose beard stunk of beef and brewis.
1854. W. Gaskell, Lect. Lanc. Dial., 13, in Lanc. Gloss. (E.D.S.). Bread soaked in broth, or in the fat that drips from meat … is known as brewis.
1857. J. Scholes, Jaunt, 13 (ibid.). Drops o fat on Owdham breawis.
