MEANING
1. To make the loud, rough call characteristic of a donkey or mule.
2. To laugh, speak, or sound loudly with a harsh, donkeylike quality.
Use it for
describing a donkey’s call; placing a harsh animal sound in a rural scene; contrasting a rough call with quieter background soundsGives loud laughter or speech a coarse, donkeylike sound rather than merely describing its volume. Writing functions: Sound / Harsh laughter.
Words that belong together
- a donkey brays
- a mule brays
- a distant bray
On the page
A mule brayed beyond the wall, startling the drowsing guard.
At dawn a distant bray traveled across the empty terraces.
He brayed with laughter while the rest of the table remained silent.
A braying voice called her name from the crowded doorway.
Word forms
- Base
- bray
- Past tense
- brayed
- Past participle
- brayed
- Present participle
- braying
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- bray
- Present continuous
- am/is/are braying
- Present perfect
- have/has brayed
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been braying
- Past
- brayed
- Past continuous
- was/were braying
- Past perfect
- had brayed
- Past perfect continuous
- had been braying
- Future
- will bray
- Future continuous
- will be braying
- Future perfect
- will have brayed
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been braying
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
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Usage notes
Verb and countable noun. Verb: bray; brays; brayed; brayed; braying. Noun plural: brays. Future: will bray. Usually intransitive; transitive use can introduce loudly spoken words. Register: neutral. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
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