branch

• braunch (obsolete)

Tree branches

From Middle English branche, braunche, bronche, borrowed from Old French branche, brance, from Late Latin branca (“footprint”, later also “paw, claw”), of unknown origin, possibly from Gaulish *vranca. Indo-European cognates include Old Norse vró (“angle, corner”), Lithuanian rankà (“hand”), Old Church Slavonic рѫка (rǫka, “hand”), Albanian rangë (“yardwork”).

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: bränch, IPA^(key): /bɹɑːntʃ/
• (US, Northern England) enPR: brănch, IPA^(key): /bɹæntʃ/

• Audio (GA)

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• Audio

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• Rhymes: -ɑːntʃ, -æntʃ

branch (plural branches)

1. The woody part of a tree arising from the trunk and usually dividing.
2. Any of the parts of something that divides like the branch of a tree.

   the branch of an antler, a chandelier, or a railway

3. (in particular) A creek or stream which flows into a larger river. (In the US, branch is a Southern US term; compare Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia run, and New York and New England brook.)
4. (geometry) One of the portions of a curve that extends outwards to an indefinitely great distance.

   the branches of a hyperbola

5. A location of an organization with several locations.

   Our main branch is downtown, and we have branches in all major suburbs.

6. A line of family descent, in distinction from some other line or lines from the same stock; any descendant in such a line.

   the English branch of a family

   • Carew

     his father, a younger branch of the ancient stock

7. (Mormonism) A local congregation of the LDS Church that is not large enough to form a ward; see Wikipedia article on ward in LDS church.
8. An area in business or of knowledge, research.
   • 2012 January 1, Robert L. Dorit, “Rereading Darwin”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 1, page 23:

     We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.

9. (nautical) A certificate given by Trinity House to a pilot qualified to take navigational control of a ship in British waters.
10. (computer architecture) A sequence of code that is conditionally executed.
11. (computing) A group of related files in a source control system, including for example source code, build scripts, and media such as images.
12. (rail transport) A branch line.

• (part of a tree): bough, tillow, twig; see also Thesaurus:tree

branch (third-person singular simple present branches, present participle branching, simple past and past participle branched)

1. (intransitive) To arise from the trunk or a larger branch of a tree.
2. (intransitive) To produce branches.
   • 1944, Emily Carr, The House of All Sorts, "Life Loves Living," :

     The tree throve and branched so heavily that the windows of Lower West and the Doll's Flat were darkened.

3. (transitive, intransitive) To (cause to) divide into separate parts or subdivisions.
4. (intransitive, computing) To jump to a different location in a program, especially as the result of a conditional statement.

• branch off
• branch out

• branch on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• branch (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From French branche (“branch”).

branch

1. branch