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/bræŋks/ Listen

noun

Branks, Brank n.

A sort of bridle with wooden side pieces. (Scot. & Prov. Eng.)

A scolding bridle, an instrument formerly used for correcting scolding women. It was an iron frame surrounding the head and having a triangular piece entering the mouth of the scold.

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Etymology of 'Branks'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Branks" Quotes from Famous Books

... many, as we have good reason to conclude, were insane or hystero-epileptics. In the church steeple at Forfar one was preserved, within recent times, with the date 1661.[55] Archdeacon Hale many years ago suggested that the "brank" was used to check noisy lunatics of the female sex; and in reference to this, Dr. Brushfield remarks: "Medical officers of asylums can always point out many female patients who, if they had been living a couple of centuries back, would undoubtedly have been branked ...

— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... magic power! To show Sir Bardie's willyart glower [bewildered], And how he stared and stammered, When goavan, as if led in branks, [moving stupidly], And stumpin' on his ploughman shanks, He in the ...

— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... arms, with the motto, "Floreat semper fidelis civitas." The lower hall contains a collection of interesting specimens of ancient armour, gleaned from the battlefields of Worcester, and one of those quaint old instruments of punishment formerly used for scolds, called a "brank." In the municipal hall, on the second floor, is a portrait of George III., who presented it to the inhabitants, and others of citizens who have done good service to the town, or in some way distinguished ...

— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall