The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #100591 Message #2020291
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
09-Apr-07 - 01:19 AM
Thread Name: What's a Braid Letter
Subject: RE: What's a Braid Letter
And I'd second that. Dictionaries are great, but only if you pay proper attention to context and etymology. 'Braide' (deceitful, dissembling) seems to have been an English rather than Scots usage, and is generally considered to derive from the same linguistic root as 'Braid' (plait, etc), whereas broad/braid has a quite different derivation.
And Jim: you certainly did suggest that 'braid' referred to braiding; which is the same as plaiting, whether applied to hair, ribbon, or the sort of fabric that might be used to edge a letter. I've never heard of the term 'braid' used in that last context, or adjectivally at all (surely it is always 'braided'); which is why I'm convinced that your suggestion was wrong -beside, of course, the fact that the simple and obvious answers are usually the right ones.