brand, noun
/brant/
- Forms:
- Formerly also brandt.
- Origin:
- Afrikaans, South African DutchShow more Afrikaans, earlier South African Dutch.
1. obsolete. noncount. Usually reporting South African Dutch or Afrikaans speech: fire.
1861 Lady Duff-Gordon Lett. from Cape (1925) 68Capt. Davis jumped up and shouted ‘Brand!’ (fire), rushed off for a stout leather hat, and ran down the street.
1919 M. Greenlees tr. of O.F. Mentzel’s Life at Cape in Mid-18th C. 124There was a light shining from a little battery on shore;..they mistook its light for the one on Robben Island, and steered accordingly. A moment afterwards the look-out man began to shout ‘Brand! Brand!’
2.
a. An area of land on which the grass has been burned. See also burn.
1893 E. Nicholson in Cape Illust. Mag. Vol.4 No.6, 206Great patches of dead black scarred the hill sides, until the wind carried away the burnt grass...Soon a faint green tinged the brands as the young grass began to shoot.
1970 E. Mundell Informant, Pearston, Eastern CapeThe sheep are grazing on the brand. (Veld that was burnt and is now budding).
b. comb.
1966 C.A. Smith Common Names 176Brandgras, Sometimes used as a general term for all grasses which flourish on burnt (Afr.: brand) veld. Sometimes with specific reference to Danthonia lanata (Geo) and Ehrharta duro (Geo). Both species are rather coarse grasses, but as the result of burning sour mountain veld, the young growth affords excellent grazing.
fire.
An area of land on which the grass has been burned.
see quotation 1966.
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