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bracken

[brak-uhn]

Origin

noun

a large fern or brake, especially Pteridium aquilinum.

a cluster or thicket of such ferns; an area overgrown with ferns and shrubs.

Origin:
1275–1325; Middle English braken < Scandinavian; compare Swedish bräken fern, Norwegian brake juniper

Related forms

brack·ened, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Bracken is always a great word to know.

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a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.

an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

bracken (ˈbrækən)

—n
1.	Also called: brake any of various large coarse ferns, esp Pteridium aquilinum, having large fronds with spore cases along the undersides and extensive underground stems
2.	a clump of any of these ferns

[C14: of Scandinavian origin; compare Swedish bräken, Danish bregne]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

bracken

"coarse fern," early 14c., northern England word, from a Scandinavian source (cf. Dan. bregne, Swedish bräken "fern").

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"Kitchens were different then, too—not only what came out of them, but their smells and sounds. A hot pie cooling smells different from a frozen pie thawing. Oilcloth and linoleum and apples in an open bowl and ruffled rubber aprons make a different aromatic mix from Formica and ceramic tile and mangoes in an acrylic fruit ripener and plastic-coated aprons printed with "Who invited all these tacky people?" And the kitchen sounds. I am not sure that today's kitchen is noisier. But the noises are different. Today you get the song of the food processor and the blender, the intermittent hum of the reefer and the freezer, the buzz-slosh-and-grunt of the dishwasher, the violently audible digestive processes of the waste disposal in the sink. Then it was the whir and clatter of the hand-powered eggbeater, the thunk-thunk-thunk of somebody mashing potatoes, or, in green-pea season, the crisp pop of pea pod and the rattle-rattle-rattle of peas into the pan."

-Peg Bracken

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