BR'ANCH, noun

1. The shoot of a tree or other plant; a limb; a bough shooting from the stem, or from another branch or bough. Johnson restricts the word to a shoot from a main bough; but the definition warranted neither by etymology nor usage.

A division of a main stem, supporting the leaves and fructification.

An arm of a tree sprouting from the stem.

2. Any arm or extended part shooting or extended from the main body of a thing; as the branch of a candlestick or of an artery. Hence, from similitude, a smaller stream running into a large one, or proceeding from it. Also, the shoot of a stag's horn; an antler.

3. Any member or part of a body, or system; a distinct article; a section or subdivision; as, charity is a branch of christian duty.

4. Any individual of a family descending in a collateral line; any descendant from a common parent or stock.

5. Branches of a bridle, two pieces of bent iron which bear the bit, the cross chains and the curb.

6. In architecture, branches of ogives are the arches of Gothic vaults, traversing from one angle to another diagonally, and forming a cross between the other arches, which make the sides of the square, of which these arches are diagonals.

7. A warrant or commission given to a pilot.

8. A chandelier.

BR'ANCH, verb intransitive To shoot or spread in branches; to ramify, as a plant, or as horns.

1. To divide into separate parts, or subdivisions, as a mountain, a stream, or a moral subject; to ramify.

2. To speak diffusively; to make many distinctions or divisions in a discourse.

3. To have horns shooting out.

BR'ANCH, verb transitive To divide as into branches; to make subordinate divisions.

1. To adorn with needle work, representing branches, flowers, or twigs.