Forms: 5 bryme, brymmyn, 5–7 brymme, 6 breame, breme, 7 brime, brimme, 7– brim, (9 dial. breme). [In 15th c. brymme, in the 16th c. and mod. dial. also breme, corresp. to brym, BREME a.; either formed from the latter, or (though not found in ME.) actually descended from OE. bremman to roar, rage, corresp. to OHG. breman, MHG. bremen to rage, roar, MDu. and Du. bremen, bremmen, from an old Teut. root brem-, cogn. with L. fremĕre. In early mod.Du. bremen had also the sense ‘desire violently,’ and LG. brummen (a derivative form) is said of the sow seeking the boar.]
1. intr. Of swine: To be ‘in heat,’ rut, copulate.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., III. 1051. Nowe bores gladly brymmeth. Ibid., 1070. The sonner wol thei [sows] brymme ayeine and brynge Forth pigges moo.
1483. Cath. Angl., 44. To Bryme, subare.
1591. Percivall, Span. Dict., Berriondez de puerca, when a sow is briming, subatio.
1616. Bullokar, Brime, a terme used among hunters when the wilde Boare goeth to the female.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Sow, To make a Sow Brim or take Boar.
1863. Atkinson, Danby Provinc., Brim, breme, 1. to desire the boar; 2. (as applied to the boar), to serve the sow.
2. trans. Said of a boar.
1552. Huloet, Brymme a sowe, as when a bore doth get pigges.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1586), 127. Is oftentimes breamed of the boare, and conceaveth.
1601. Holland, Pliny Nat. Hist., I. 304.
1725. Bailey, Erasm. Colloq., 452. Every Boar to brim his Sow.
1863. [see 1].
