brand

Less common meanings

5. 5
   burned marknouncountable

   A mark or scar burned in with a hot iron, as on cattle to show ownership or on a cask to identify its contents.

   The brand on the steer's flank identified its owner instantly.

   Each cask bore a brand showing what it held.

   Similarmark, stamp

   Note

   The mark takes its name from the fire that makes it. The scar is also an old figure for what cannot be hidden. Mitzel's “A Sissy's Revenge” in Gay Community News (1982) describes a word “like a brand that grew deeper and redder every day,” the bridge to the “stigma” meaning. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • The burned mark derives its name from an earlier meaning connected with fire. en.wikipedia.org
   • Mitzel wrote an article titled “A Sissy's Revenge” in Gay Community News in 1982. en.wiktionary.org
6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To burn a permanent mark into the skin of an animal or person with a hot iron, as on cattle to show ownership or formerly on criminals.

   Ranchers brand their herds to deter theft.

   The hands branded forty steers before noon.

7. 7
   label someoneverbtransitive

   To label someone with a damaging name or reputation that is hard to shake off.

   Critics branded the policy a failure within weeks.

   Society is quick to brand outsiders as troublemakers.

   UsageBrand someone a liar, or brand someone as a liar; common in the passive: he was branded a traitor.

   Similarlabel, stigmatize, denounce, dub, tag

   Note

   The figurative heir of branding with a hot iron: words now do the iron's work, and the label is meant to stay. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • The damaging-label sense figuratively extends literal branding with a hot iron. gutenberg.org
8. 8
   shamenouncountable

   A mark of disgrace or lasting stigma attached to a person or group.

   The conviction was a brand she could never escape.

   Defeat left a brand of shame on the whole regiment.

   Similarstigma, stain, taint, blot, mark

9. 9
   stick in mindverbtransitive

   To make a lasting, unforgettable impression on someone's memory or senses.

   The horrors he witnessed in the war branded themselves on his mind.

   Vivid images of the disaster brand themselves into the viewer's memory.

   UsageUsually passive or with themselves, plus on or into: branded on my memory.

   Similarsear, etch, imprint, engrave, burn

   Note

   The iron's permanence becomes a metaphor for memory. Unlike the labeling sense, it carries no disgrace, only an impression too vivid to fade. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • The memory sense metaphorically compares an indelible impression to a mark burned with a hot iron. gutenberg.org
10. 10
    marking ironnouncountable

    An iron tool that is heated and used to burn an identifying mark into livestock or other property.

    The ranch hands kept several brands hanging by the corral gate.

    He pressed the heated brand against the steer's flank.

    Similariron

11. 11
    burning woodnounarchaic

    A piece of burning wood or peat, or a glowing cinder, taken from or remaining in a fire.

    He stirred the embers and lifted a brand to relight his pipe.

    The fearful brands and bleezes of het fire.

    1513, Gavin Douglas, The Eneados

    Note

    The burning stick survives in poetic and historical prose, usually as a live brand snatched from a fire or as the smoking brands of a camp. Washington Irving's A Tour on the Prairies (1835) has rangers' fires whose “brands” were “still smoking.” The phrase to burn something to brands and ashes keeps the sense in idiom. In everyday speech, the compound firebrand carries it. Source

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

    • Washington Irving wrote A Tour on the Prairies. oupress.com
    • A Tour on the Prairies was first published in 1835; the first London edition's title page bears that year. archive.org
    • Irving's narrative describes smoking brands remaining from a company of rangers' campfire, using the quoted words. archive.org
    • The expression burn to brands and ashes preserves the burning-wood sense. en.wikisource.org
    • Firebrand is a compound containing brand and can mean a burning stick. en.wiktionary.org
12. 12
    nounobsolete

    A flame; a tongue of fire.

    Is yet againe thy brest enflamde, / with brande of venus might

    1559, Jasper Heywood, Troas

    Goe to prepare the maryages what neede the torchis light? be holde the towres of troy do shyne with brandes that blase full bright.

    1559, Jasper Heywood, Troas

    Note

    The flame itself, a meaning long obsolete and rarely recorded. Jasper Heywood's translation of Troas (1559) has the towers of Troy “shyne with brandes that blase full bright.” He also uses it for love's fire: “with brande of venus might.” A modern reader of that plural should picture flames, not burning sticks. A modern writer should simply say flame. Source

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

    • Brand has an obsolete noun sense meaning a flame. en.wiktionary.org
    • Jasper Heywood's English translation of Troas was first published in 1559. en.wikisource.org
    • Heywood's Troas describes Troy's towers with the quoted wording. en.wiktionary.org
    • The same translation uses brand figuratively for the fire of love, with the quoted wording. en.wiktionary.org
13. 13
    nounobsolete

    A widespread, destructive fire; a conflagration.

    Note

    Here the word covers the whole blaze, a use that is obsolete and was rare even when current. A reader of older texts should picture a sweeping fire rather than one piece of burning fuel. A writer today should not revive it, because brand on its own will be read as a burning stick or as the commercial word. Source

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 1 fact

    • Brand historically meant a whole conflagration, a sense labelled obsolete and rare. kaikki.org
14. 14
    nounarchaic

    A sword carried as a weapon, especially in heroic and poetic writing.

    Paradise, so late their happy seat, / Waved over by that flaming brand.

    1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost

    Note

    The poet's sword comes straight from the Old English word behind the burned mark, which already meant both fire and blade. Milton joins the two in Paradise Lost (1667), where Paradise is “waved over by that flaming brand.” Tennyson's “Sir Galahad” lets “the hard brands shiver on the steel.” The word belongs only in deliberately heroic or archaic writing. Source

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts

    • The sword sense descends from Old English brand, which already meant fire and sword. kaikki.org
    • The burned-mark sense developed from the same inherited word. en.wikipedia.org
    • John Milton wrote Paradise Lost, first published in 1667. en.wikisource.org
    • Milton's narrator describes Paradise as waved over by a flaming brand, meaning a sword; the quotation modernizes the original spelling. en.wikisource.org
    • Alfred Tennyson wrote Sir Galahad. en.wikipedia.org
    • Sir Galahad contains the quoted words, spoken by its first-person narrator, Galahad. en.wikisource.org
15. 15
    noundialectalNorthern EnglandScotland

    A torch used to send signals over a distance.
16. 16
    noundated

    A minute fungus that produces a scorched or burnt appearance on plants.
17. 17
    verbrare

    To give off intense heat; to burn.