Definition of "bray" [bray]

• To utter the loud, harsh cry of a donkey. (verb-intransitive)
• To sound loudly and harshly: The foghorn brayed all night. (verb-intransitive)
• To emit (an utterance or a sound) loudly and harshly. (verb-transitive)
• The loud, harsh cry of a donkey. (noun)
• A sound resembling that of a donkey: "an endless bray of pointless jocosity” ( Louis Auchincloss). (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 bray is a way to bond and a way to communicate with the other penguins."
• "He proceeded to blow into it, but failed to produce anything more huntsman-like than a kind of bray such as might be uttered by a jackass suffering from a sore-throat."
• "It started with a kind of bray, then turned into a snorting sound, infecting everyone around her with laughter, he said."