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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
• brant
  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

Noun Inflected Forms

• brant
  plural
• brants
  plural

Etymology

Origin of brant

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

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

brant Brant brants

Izembek Lagoon holds one of the world’s largest beds of eelgrass, a rich food source for Pacific brant geese, endangered Steller’s eider sea ducks and other migratory birds.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 16, 2022

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

To a lake with many islands Came the breathless Pau-Puk-Keewis, 190Where among the water-lilies Pishnekuh, the brant, were sailing; Through the tufts of rushes floating, Steering through the reedy islands.

From The Song of Hiawatha An Epic Poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Whisenant and Brant Hysell climbed that route in 2 hours, 55 minutes and 32 seconds, they reported, several minutes faster than the prior record.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026

“It’s difficult to purchase work by someone who’s working so hard to avoid being known because you’re buying folklore,” Brant said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 17, 2026

The second favorite at 5-2 is undefeated Brant, who is trained by Baffert.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2025

Between the bank’s additions of Cadence and Veritex, Huntington is “building a powerful financial powerhouse in Texas,” Brant Standridge, who leads the firm’s consumer and regional banking, told analysts on Monday.

From Barron's ● Oct. 28, 2025

Our English teacher, Mr. Brant, had us writing short fiction as well as reading Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities.

From "Bad Boy" by Walter Dean Myers

It concluded that both would have “major” impacts on brants, tundra swans, emperor geese, bears, fish and, potentially, caribou.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 15, 2017

But today, the numbers have switched: About 70 percent of the black brants now molt along the coast, having discovered the recent expansion of a new rich food source along the Beaufort Sea.

From Scientific American ● Feb. 7, 2014

But the brants did not know this, and as soon as they heard her they flew down and carried her off on their wings.

From The Strange Story Book by Mrs. Andrew Lang

Waal, some, a brace or two o' brants; jest hand me them pincers, Mort.

From Sara, a Princess by Fannie E. Newberry

On the sand-bars, which here very much obstructed the course of the river, great number of geese, swans, brants, and ducks of different kinds were seen.

From Travels in North America, From Modern Writers With Remarks and Observations; Exhibiting a Connected View of the Geography and Present State of that Quarter of the Globe by William Bingley