different between grail vs brail

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??e??/
• Rhymes: -e?l

Etymology 1

Old French graal (“cup”), from Medieval Latin gradalis, possibly corrupted over time from Latin crater (“bowl”).

Noun

grail (plural grails)

1. The Holy Grail.
2. Something eagerly sought or quested for.

Related terms

• Sangrail

Etymology 2

From Old French grael, ultimately from Latin graduale. Doublet of gradual.

Noun

grail (plural grails)

1. A book of offices in the Roman Catholic Church; a gradual.
   • 1694, John Strype, the Memorials of Thomas Cranmer

     antiphonals, missals, grails, processionals, etc.

Etymology 3

Origin uncertain; perhaps a reduced form of gravel.

Noun

grail (uncountable)

1. (poetic) Small particles of earth; gravel.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.vii:

     Hereof this gentle knight vnweeting was, / And lying downe vpon the sandie graile, / Drunke of the streame, as cleare as cristall glas [...].

Etymology 4

Compare Old French graite slender.

Noun

grail (plural grails)

1. One of the small feathers of a hawk.

Anagrams

• argil, glair

English

Etymology

From Middle English brayle, from Old French braiel, from Medieval Latin bracale (“girdle”) (from bracae (“breeches”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b?e?l/
• Rhymes: -e?l

Noun

brail (plural brails)

1. (nautical) A small rope used to truss up sails.
2. (falconry) A thong of soft leather to bind up a hawk's wing.
3. A stock at each end of a seine to keep it stretched.
4. (theater) A rope or line used to suspend lights or scenery in a certain position.
5. (in the plural) The feathers around a hawk's rump.

Verb

brail (third-person singular simple present brails, present participle brailing, simple past and past participle brailed)

1. To reef, shorten or strike sail using brails.

References

• brail in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• This article incorporates content from the 1728 Cyclopaedia, a publication in the public domain.

Anagrams

• Arbil, Baril, Blair, Bliar, Libra, Rabil, libra

Middle English

Noun

brail

1. Alternative form of brayle

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English barail.

Noun

brail (plural brailès)

1. barrel

References

• Jacob Poole (1867) , William Barnes, editor, A glossary, with some pieces of verse, of the old dialect of the English colony in the baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, J. Russell Smith, ?ISBN