Definition of "brank" [brank]

• A device consisting of a metal frame for the head and a bit to restrain the tongue, formerly used to punish scolds. Usually used in the plural. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The work's title, Brank & Heckle, refers to a brank, a 16th-century iron muzzle used to silence women offenders, and hecklers, first thought to refer to 19th-century Dundee mill workers who, while heckling combing out flax would, like the artist, give surreptitious voice to dissent."
• "It was called the brank or scold's bridle, and probably came to us from"
• "An instrument of punishment formerly much used in England, but never, we think, introduced into this country, called the "brank," or "scold's bridle," or "gossip's bridle," is thus described by Mr.L. Jewitt,"