a term of relation between male children, sprung from the same parents, or from the same father, or the same mother.

The ancients used the term brother, indifferently, to almost all who stood related in the collateral line, as uncles and nephews, cousins-german, &c.

According to the laws of Moses, the brother of a man, who died without children, was obliged to marry the widow of the deceased, in order to raise up children to him, that his name and memory might not be extinct. See the article Widow.

Among us, it is customary for kings to give the title brother to each other.

In the civil law, brothers, fratres, in the plural number, sometimes comprehends sisters.

Brother is also a customary term for priests of the same persuasion to address one another by; but it is more particularly used to denote the relation between monks of the same convent, as Father Zachary: In English, we more usually say, Friar Zachary, from the French word frere, brother. Preachers also call their hearers, my brethren, or my dear brethren; and sometimes they use the singular number, and say, my brother.

This appellation is borrowed from the primitive Christians, who all called each other brothers: but it is now principally used for such of the religious as are not priests; those in orders are generally honoured with the title of father, whereas the rest are only simply brothers.

Brothers-German. See German.

Brothers of the rosy-cross. See Rosicrucian.

Brouck, the name of a town of Germany, in the circle of Westphalia, upon the river Roer; and likewise of a town of Switzerland, upon the banks of the Aar.

Brouershaven, a port-town of Zeland, in the united Netherlands, situated on the north side of the island of Schonen, about nine miles south-west of Helvoetfluyss: E. lon. 3° 55', and N. lat. 51° 50'.

Brow, or Eye-brow, an hairy arch extended over the orbit of each eye. See p. 291, col. 1.

Brow-post, among builders, denotes a beam which goes across a building.

Brow-antler, among sportsmen, that branch of a deer's horn next the tail.

Browallia, in botany, a genus of the didynamia angiopermia clas. The calyx has five teeth; the limbus of the corolla is divided into five equal and open segments; and the capsule is unilocular.

Brown, among dyers, painters, &c., a dusky colour, inclining towards redness. Of this colour there are various shades or degrees, distinguished by different appellations; for instance, Spanish-brown, a faded brown, a tawney-brown, the London brown, a clove-brown, &c.

Spanish-brown is a dark dull red, of a horse-flesh colour. It is an earth, and is of great use among painters, being generally used as the first and priming colour that they lay upon any kind of timber-work in house-painting. That which is of the deepest colour, and freest from stones, is the best. Though this is of a dirty brown colour, yet it is much used, not to colour any garment, unless it be an old man's gown; gown; but to shadow vermillion, or to lay upon any dark ground behind a picture, or to shadow yellow berries in the darkest places, when you want lake, &c. It is best and brightest when burnt in the fire, till it be red hot, although, if you would colour any hare, horse, dog, or the like, it should not be burnt; but, for other uses, it is best when it is burnt; as for instance, for colouring wood, posts, bodies of trees, or anything else of wood, or any dark ground of a picture. See Dying.