braze

Meanings

Verb

• To cover with brass, or as with brass.
• To join two metal pieces, without melting them, using heat and diffusion of a jointing alloy of capillary thickness.
• To burn or temper in fire.

Noun

• A kind of small charcoal used for roasting ore.

Origin

• From Middle English brasen, from Old English brasian, bræsian, from bræs.
• 1580s, "to expose to the action of fire", perhaps from French braser, though the sense evolution is difficult to explain. Perhaps the English word is older, being unrecorded in Middle English but borrowed from Old French braser, which fits the meaning more closely. Old French braser derives from Old Norse brasa. Also possible is that the Middle English and English words were borrowed directly from Old Norse.