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• brant
  brant

  noun

  any of several species of small, dark-colored geese of the genus Branta, especially B. bernicla, breeding in high northern latitudes and migrating south in the autumn.
• Brant
  Brant

  noun

  Joseph Thayendanegea, 1742–1807, Mohawk Indian chief who fought on the side of the British in the American Revolution.

brant

¹ American  

[brant] / brænt /

noun

brants plural

1. any of several species of small, dark-colored geese of the genus Branta, especially B. bernicla, breeding in high northern latitudes and migrating south in the autumn.

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Brant ² American  

[brant] / brænt /

noun

1. Joseph Thayendanegea, 1742–1807, Mohawk Indian chief who fought on the side of the British in the American Revolution.

2. a male given name.

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brant British  

/ brænt /

noun

1. Also called (in Britain and certain other countries): brent goose.  a small goose, Branta bernicla, that has a dark grey plumage and short neck and occurs in most northern coastal regions

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• brants
  plural
• brant
  plural

Etymology

Origin of brant

First recorded in 1535–45; short for brantgoose, brentgoose; akin to Old Norse brandgās, German Brandgans

Example Sentences

Teshekpuk Lake serves as molting area for one-fifth of the world’s Pacific black brant and calving grounds for tens of thousands of caribou each summer.

From Seattle Times • Jun. 25, 2020

In spring and fall, nearly all of the world’s population of emperor and Pacific black brant geese stops to devour the refuge’s eelgrass beds for sustenance.

From Washington Post • Oct. 15, 2017

Black brant geese migrate into this region in mid-July to molt, a period when they are unable to fly for about three weeks.

From Scientific American • Feb. 7, 2014

In the second room 25 similarly arranged images from the series “On Any Given Day in Spring” take a quite different tack, capturing wide open beaches dotted with flocks of shorebirds called brant.

From New York Times • Oct. 11, 2012

We were chiefly occupied in hunting, and were able to procure three deer, four brant, and two ducks; and also saw some signs of elk.

From Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers by Iles, George