brae

/bɹeɪ/

Etymology

From Middle English bro, bra (“bank of a stream; raised edge of a ditch or pit”), from Old Norse brá (“eyebrow; eyelash”) (probably in the sense of the brow of a hill), from Proto-Germanic *brēwō (“eyebrow”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃bʰrúHs (“eyebrow”). The English word is cognate with Old English brǣw, brēaw (“eyelid”), Old High German brāwa (Middle High German brā, modern German Braue (“eyebrow”)), Old Saxon brāwa, brāha (“eyebrow; eyelash”); and is a doublet of bree (“(Scotland) brow; forehead; (obsolete or dialectal, Scotland) eyebrow; eyelid”) and brow.

brae means the sloping bank of a river valley. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 84 out of 100.

Why this word is great

BRAE — [Noun] A hillside or slope, especially the bank of a river valley. From Middle English bro, bra ("bank of a stream, raised edge"), from Old Norse brá ("eyebrow, eyelash"), used in the sense 'brow of a hill', from Proto-Germanic *brēwō ("eyebrow"). Unlike a "bluff," which confronts with a sheer and defiant face, or a "strath," which settles into the flatness of the valley floor, a brae is the gentle, intermediary slant of the land. It is the heather-tufted ascent behind a croft, the damp, grassy gradient where sheep drift like slow clouds, and the long, whispering shoulder you descend to reach a chuckling burn—the modest, patient angle where life is most earnestly lived.

noun

The sloping bank of a river valley.“Was it not Wat the Devil, who drove all the year-old hogs off the braes of Lanthorn-side, in the very recent days of my grandfather's father?”
Any hillside or slope.“You are directed to the particular part of the brae where the Covenanters stationed themselves, (at the time of my visit it was a field of pasture, on which some cows were quietly feeding,) and the eminence behind, [...]”