brant

¹ American  

[brant] / brænt /

noun

plural

brants,

plural

brant

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.

---

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.

---

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

---

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

As with black brant geese and polar bears, perhaps not enough.

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

A differing characteristic, however, is that the white speckling on the sides of the neck of the barnacle brant extends all around the front of the neck in the case of the black sea brant.

From Game Birds and Game Fishes of the Pacific Coast by Payne, Harry Thom