brawn
UK/bɹɔːn//bɹɔn/
brawn noun: strong muscles or lean flesh, especially of the arm, leg or thumb.
Noun
brawn (countable and uncountable, plural brawns)
- Strong muscles or lean flesh, especially of the arm, leg or thumb.
- Physical strength; muscularity.
- The builders at the site had more brawn than brain.
- The man was a bruiser, the sort who'd learned his science in tavern brawls. Given his size and lack of agility, he relied on his brawn to win. In any wrestling match, Crowley would triumph easily.2000, Stephanie Laurens, A Secret Love, Avon Books, published 2000, →ISBN, page 349
- Head cheese; a terrine made from the head of a pig or calf; originally boar's meat.
- Now if your Majesty would have our bristles
To bind your mortar with, or fill our colons
With rich blood, or make brawn out of our gristles,
In policy—ask else your royal Solons—
You ought to give us hog-wash and clean straw,
And sties well thatched; besides it is the law!1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts - It was brawn and shape for high tea.1978, Jane Gardam, God on the Rocks, Abacus, published 2014, page 111
- Now if your Majesty would have our bristles
- A boar.
- And loud as brawns wer [they] snoring,1821, John Stagg, The Cumbrian Minstrel: Being a Poetical Miscellany
- THE village of Brancepath, pleasantly situated at the distance of four miles and three- quarters south-west by west of Durham, is said to have derived its name (a corruption of Brawn's-path) from a brawn of vast size, [...]1842, Moses Aaron Richardson, The Borderer's Table Book: Or, Gatherings of the Local History
Verb
brawn (third-person singular simple present brawns, present participle brawning, simple past and past participle brawned)
Proper noun capitalized: Brawn
Brawn (plural Brawns)
- A surname.
brawn meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
brawn in Tamil
- ஊறற்பன்றியிறைச்சி, தசைநார், கொழுந்தை, தசையாற்றல், பன்றி ஏற்றை, ஆண்பன்றியின் இறைச்சியிட்ட ஊறுகாய்
brawn in Urdu
- دم, مضبوط پٹھوا
brawn in Malayalam
- physical strength, muscularity
- കരുത്ത് karuttŭ
Examples of brawn in a sentence
- The two men were husky, picked for their brawn by the little man who sauntered into the room.2008, Michael Mandaville, Stealing Thunder, Dog Ear Publishing, published 2008, →ISBN, page 562:
- The youth agreed to the scheme and used his brawn to begin moving pieces into place, starting by moving the planet Rann into the Thanagarian star system […]2010, Martin Pasko, Robert Greenberger, The Essential Superman Encyclopedia, Del Ray, published 2010, →ISBN, page 218:
Forms of brawn
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | brawns |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | brawns |
| present participle | brawning |
| past participle | brawned |
| past | brawned |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Brawns |
Origin of brawn
From Middle English brawne, from Old French braon (“slice of meat, fleshy part, buttock”), from Frankish *brādon, *brādan, oblique forms of *brādō (“roasted meat, ham”), from Proto-Germanic *brēdô (“meat, roast”), of uncertain further origin, but possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreh₁- (“to burn, heat”). Akin to Old High German brāto (“tender meat”) (German Braten (“roast”)), Old English brǣde, brǣd (“flesh, meat”), Old Norse bráð (“raw meat”).
* As an English surname, probably a variant of Brand. * As a German surname, possibly altered from Braun.
Words formed from brawn
Words that rhyme with brawn
Questions about brawn
- What does brawn mean?
- Brawn means strong muscles or lean flesh, especially of the arm, leg or thumb.
- What is brawn in Tamil?
- Brawn in Tamil is ஊறற்பன்றியிறைச்சி, தசைநார், கொழுந்தை. See Brawn meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use brawn in a sentence?
- The two men were husky, picked for their brawn by the little man who sauntered into the room.
- What part of speech is brawn?
- Brawn can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce brawn?
- Brawn is pronounced /bɹɔːn/ (UK).
- What is the plural of brawn?
- The plural of brawn is brawns.
Words near brawn in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: brawn (page history and authors); Brawn (page history and authors); brawn (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); brawn (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-brawn.ogg, en-au-brawn.ogg.
Cite this entry: “brawn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brawn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.