• (RP, GA) enPR: breɪ, IPA: /bɹeɪ/

bray (brays, present participle braying; past and past participle brayed)

1. (intransitive) Of an animal (now chiefly of animals related to the ass or donkey, and the camel): to make#Verb|make its cry#Noun|cry.

   Synonyms: blore, hee-haw

   Whenever I walked by, that donkey brayed at me.

   • When she went to the famous ass-race [...], it was not, like other ladies, to hear those poor animals bray, nor see fellows run naked, or to hear country squires in bob wigs and white girdles make love at the side of a coach and cry, "Madam, this is dainty weather."

2. (intransitive, by extension) To make a harsh, discordant sound#Noun|sound like a donkey's bray.

   He threw back his head and brayed with laughter.

3. (transitive) To make or utter (a shout#Noun|shout, sound, etc.) discordantly, loudly, or in a harsh and grating#Adjective|grating manner.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VI ↗”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗, lines 207–211:

     [N]ow ſtorming furie roſe, / And clamour ſuch as heard in Heav'n till now / Was never, Arms on Armour claſhing bray'd / Horrible discord, and the madding Wheeles / Of brazen Chariots rag'd; [...]

   • 1808 February 21, Walter Scott, “Canto Fifth. The Court.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: Printed by J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, OCLC 270129616 ↗, stanza V, page 247 ↗:

     Just then the chiefs their tribes arrayed, / And wild and garish semblance made, / The chequered trews, and belted plaid, / And varying notes the war-pipes brayed, / To every varying clan; [...]

• French: braire
• German: iahen, kreischen, schreien
• Italian: ragliare
• Portuguese: ornejar, zurrar
• Spanish: rebuznar

• Spanish: ronquido

• German: kreischen wie ein Esel, schreien wie ein Esel

• German: kreischen

bray (plural brays)

1. The cry#Noun|cry of an animal, now chiefly that of animals related to the ass or donkey, or the camel.

   Synonyms: hee-haw

2. (by extension) Any discordant, grating#Adjective|grating, or harsh sound#Noun|sound.

• French: braiment
• German: Eselsschrei
• Italian: raglio
• Portuguese: ornejo, zurro
• Russian: рёв осёл
• Spanish: rebuzno

• German: röhren
• Spanish: roncar

bray (brays, present participle braying; past and past participle brayed)

1. (transitive, archaic) To crush#Verb|crush or pound#Verb|pound, especially using a pestle#Noun|pestle and mortar#Noun|mortar.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Proverbs 27:22 ↗:

     Though thou ſhouldeſt bray a fool in a morter among wheate with a peſtell, yet will not his fooliſhneſſe depart from him.

   • 1624, “The Commodities in Virginia, or that May Be Had by Industrie”, in John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles: […], London: Printed by I[ohn] D[awson] and I[ohn] H[aviland] for Michael Sparkes, OCLC 1049014009 ↗, book 2; reprinted in The Generall Historie of Virginia, [...] (Bibliotheca Americana), Cleveland, Oh.: The World Publishing Company, 1966, OCLC 633956660 ↗, page 30 ↗:

     Their heads and ſhoulders are painted red with the roote Pocone brayed to powder, mixed with oyle, this they hold in ſommer to preſerue them from the heate, and in winter from the cold.

2. (transitive, Britain, chiefly, Yorkshire, by extension) To hit#Verb|hit (someone or something).

• German: verreiben, zermalmen, zerreiben

• IPA: /bɹeɪ/

1. Surname
2. A village in Berkshire, England