brand

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A name or logo that identifies a company's products or services.

   This is one of the most popular brands of coffee.

2. 2
   noun

   A particular product made by a company.

   Some brands of cereal contain a lot of sugar.

3. 3
   verb

   To describe someone as having a bad quality, often unfairly.

   The newspaper branded him a liar.

4. 4
   verb

   To burn a mark onto an animal to show who owns it.

   The ranchers branded the cattle every spring.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Brand existed in Old English with the senses “burning” and “a piece of burning wood.” From the practice of marking something permanently with a hot iron came the sense “mark of ownership,” which later developed into the modern commercial sense of a named type of product.

From Middle English brand, from Old English brand (“fire; flame; burning; torch; sword”), from Proto-West Germanic *brand, from Proto-Germanic *brandaz (“flame; flaming; fire-brand; torch; sword”), derived from Proto-Germanic *brinnaną (“to burn”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁- (“to boul; brew”). Cognate with Scots brand, West Frisian brân (“fire”), Dutch brand, German Brand, Danish brand, Swedish brand (“blaze, fire”), Icelandic brandur, French brand (< Germanic). More distantly cognate with Proto-Slavic *gorěti (“to burn”).

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary