Part 844

Brush"wood (&?;), n. 1. Brush; a thicket or coppice of small trees and shrubs.

2. Small branches of trees cut off.

Brush"y, a. Resembling a brush; shaggy; rough.

Brusk (&?;), a. Same as Brusque.

Brusque (&?;), a. [F. brusque, from It. brusco brusque, tart, sour, perh. fr. L. (vitis) labrusca wild (vine); or cf. OHG. bruttisc grim, fr. brutti terror.] Rough and prompt in manner; blunt; abrupt; bluff; as, a brusque man; a brusque style.

Brusque"ness, n. Quality of being brusque; roughness joined with promptness; bluntness. Brit. Quar.

Brus"sels (&?;), n. A city of Belgium, giving its name to a kind of carpet, a kind of lace, etc.

Brussels carpet, a kind of carpet made of worsted yarn fixed in a foundation web of strong linen thread. The worsted, which alone shows on the upper surface in drawn up in loops to form the pattern. -- Brussels ground, a name given to the handmade ground of real Brussels lace. It is very costly because of the extreme fineness of the threads. -- Brussels lace, an expensive kind of lace of several varieties, originally made in Brussels; as, Brussels point, Brussels ground, Brussels wire ground. -- Brussels net, an imitation of Brussels ground, made by machinery. -- Brussels point. See Point lace. -- Brussels sprouts (Bot.), a plant of the Cabbage family, which produces, in the axils of the upright stem, numerous small green heads, or "sprouts," each a cabbage in miniature, of one or two inches in diameter; the thousand-headed cabbage. -- Brussels wire ground, a ground for lace, made of silk, with meshes partly straight and partly arched.

Brus"tle (&?;), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Brustled (&?;); p. pr. & vb. n. Brustling (&?;).] [OE. brustlien and brastlien, AS. brastlian, fr. berstan to burst, akin to G. prasseln to crackle. See Burst, v. i.] 1. To crackle; to rustle, as a silk garment. [Obs.] Gower.

2. To make a show of fierceness or defiance; to bristle. [Obs.]

To brustle up, to bristle up. [Obs.] Otway.

Brus"tle, n. A bristle. [Obs. or Prov.] Chaucer.

Brut (&?;), v. i. [F. brouter, OF. brouster. See Browse, n.] To browse. [Obs.] Evelyn.

Brut, n. (Zoöl.) See Birt.

||Bru"ta (&?;), n. [NL., neuter pl., fr. L. brutus heavy, stupid.] (Zoöl.) See Edentata.

Bru"tal (&?;), a. [Cf. F. brutal. See Brute, a.] 1. Of or pertaining to a brute; as, brutal nature. "Above the rest of brutal kind." Milton.

2. Like a brute; savage; cruel; inhuman; brutish; unfeeling; merciless; gross; as, brutal manners. "Brutal intemperance." Macaulay.

Bru"tal*ism (&?;), n. Brutish quality; brutality.

Bru*tal"i*ty (&?;), n.; pl. Brutalities (&?;). [Cf. F. brutalité.] 1. The quality of being brutal; inhumanity; savageness; pitilessness.

2. An inhuman act.

The . . . brutalities exercised in war. Brougham.

Bru`tal*i*za"tion (&?;), n. The act or process of making brutal; state of being brutalized.

Bru"tal*ize (&?;), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Brutalized (&?;); p. pr. & vb. n. Brutalizing.] [Cf. F. brutaliser.] To make brutal; beasty; unfeeling; or inhuman.

Bru"tal*ize, v. i. To become brutal, inhuman, barbarous, or coarse and beasty. [R.]

He mixed . . . with his countrymen, brutalized with them in their habits and manners. Addison.

Bru"tal*ly, adv. In a brutal manner; cruelly.

Brute (brt), a. [F. brut, nasc., brute, fem., raw, rough, rude, brutish, L. brutus stupid, irrational: cf. It. & Sp. bruto.] 1. Not having sensation; senseless; inanimate; unconscious; without intelligence or volition; as, the brute earth; the brute powers of nature.

2. Not possessing reason, irrational; unthinking; as, a brute beast; the brute creation.