What does "bran" mean?

The broken coat of the seed of wheat, rye, or other cereal grain, separated from the flour or meal by sifting or bolting; the coarse, chaffy part of ground grain.

What is a synonym for "bran"?

Common synonyms include: air pollution, attritus, bark, barley, bird seed, capsule.

Bran

//ˈbɹæn// name, noun, verb

name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1
The broken coat of the seed of wheat, rye, or other cereal grain, separated from the flour or meal by sifting or bolting; the coarse, chaffy part of ground grain. countable, uncountable
2
The European carrion crow.
3
food prepared from the husks of cereal grains wordnet
4
broken husks of the seeds of cereal grains that are separated from the flour by sifting wordnet

Verb

1
To clean (metal) using a branner. transitive

Proper Noun

1
A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms

air pollution attritus bark barley bird seed capsule

Example

More examples

"Remember to eat lots of bran to keep your bowels moving."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English bran, branne, bren, from Old French bren, bran (“bran, filth”), from Gaulish brennos (“rotten”), from Proto-Celtic *bragnos (“rotten, foul”) (compare Welsh braen (“stench”), Irish bréan (“rancid”), Walloon brin (“excrement”)), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreHg- (compare Latin fragrāre (“to smell strongly”), Dutch brak (“hound”)).

Etymology 2

From a Celtic source; compare Welsh brân and Cornish bran.

Etymology 3

English surname, variant of Brann.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.