brayer

bray +‎ -er

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɹeɪɚ/
• Rhymes: -eɪə(ɹ)

brayer (plural brayers)

1. (printing) A hand printing tool, in the US often a roller, used to spread a thin even layer of ink. Early brayers, consisting of a vertical cylinder with a single handle, were designed to break up thick inks before spreading.
2. One who brays, or makes the sound of a donkey.
   • 1728, [Alexander Pope], “Book the First”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. , Dublin, London: A. Dodd, →OCLC, page 2:

     Sound forth my Brayers, and the welkin rend

• Yarber, ebrary

Inherited from Old French, from Old Norse bræða (“melt; make oil, tar, pitch”).

• IPA^(key): /bʁɛ.je/ ~ /bʁe.je/

• Audio:

  (file)

brayer

1. to coat with pitch

This is a regular -er verb as far as pronunciation is concerned, but as with other verbs in -ayer (such as payer and essayer, the <y> of its stem may optionally be written as <i> when it precedes a silent <e> (compare verbs in -eyer, which never have this spelling change, and verbs in -oyer and -uyer, which always have it; verbs in -ayer belong to either group, according to the writer's preference).

brayer m (plural brayers)

1. (surgery) truss

• “brayer”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.