brand

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a recognizable kind

   there's a new brand of hero in the movies now

2. 2
   verb

   to mark or expose as infamous

   I was branded a genius.

3. 3
   verb

   to mark with a brand or trademark

   When this product is not branded it sells for a lower price.

4. 4
   verb

   to accuse, condemn, openly or formally, or brand as disgraceful

   I branded them traitors.

5. 5
   verb

   to burn with a branding iron to indicate ownership

   Some people find branding cattle to be disturbing.

6. 6
   noun

   A mark or scar made by burning with a hot iron, especially to mark cattle or to classify the contents of a cask.

   “Well, in the first place, every cattleman has to have a brand to identify his stock. Without it no cattleman, nor half a hundred cowboys, if he had so many, could ever recognize all the cattle in a big herd. […]”

7. 7
   noun

   The symbolic identity, represented by a name and/or a logo, which indicates a certain product or service to the public.

   The Amtrak brand revitalization approach represents one of the most ambitious, comprehensive, and systematic experiential marketing approaches I have ever seen.

8. 8
   noun

   A specific product, service, or provider so distinguished.

   Some brands of breakfast cereal contain a lot of sugar.

Etymology

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”).