Bray vs Wray - What's the difference?
bray | wray |
Of a donkey, to make its cry.
Of a camel, to make its cry.
To make a harsh, discordant sound like a donkey's bray.
To make or utter with a loud, discordant, or harsh and grating sound.
* Milton
* Sir Walter Scott
* Gray
The cry of an ass or donkey.
The cry of a camel
Any harsh, grating, or discordant sound.
* Jerrold
To crush or pound, especially with a mortar.
* Bible, Proverbs xxvii. 22
* 1624 , John Smith, Generall Historie , in Kupperman 1988, p. 141:
(British, chiefly Yorkshire) By extension, to hit someone or something.
* 2011 , , Butchers Perfume'' from ''The Beautiful Indifference , Faber and Faber (2011), page
(obsolete) To denounce (a person).
(obsolete) To reveal (a secret).
* Late 14th century: no thyng dorste he seye, / Save in his songes somwhat wolde he wreye / His wo — Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Franklin's Tale’, Canterbury Tales
(obsolete) To betray.
As a proper noun bray
is .As a verb wray is
(obsolete) to denounce (a person).bray
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) braire, from ).Verb
(en verb)- Whenever I walked by, that donkey brayed at me.
- He threw back his head and brayed with laughter.
- Arms on armour clashing, brayed / Horrible discord.
- And varying notes the war pipes brayed .
- Heard ye the din of battle bray ?
Noun
(en noun)- The bray and roar of multitudinous London.
Synonyms
* hee-hawEtymology 2
From (etyl) breier (Modern French broyer).Verb
(en verb)- Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.
- Their heads and shoulders are painted red with the roote Pocone brayed to powder, mixed with oyle [...].
25:
- If anything he brayed him all the harder - the old family bull recognising his fighting days were close to over.