branch

Etymology

From Middle English branche, braunche, bronche, from Old French branche, branke, from Late Latin branca (“footprint”, later also “paw, claw”) (whence Middle High German pranke, German Pranke (“paw”)), of unknown origin. Perhaps of Celtic origin, from a hypothetical Gaulish *vranca, from Proto-Indo-European *wrónk-eh₂. If so, then Indo-European cognates include Old Norse rá, vró (“angle, corner”), and possibly Lithuanian rankà (“hand”), Old Church Slavonic рѫка (rǫka, “hand”), Albanian rangë (“yardwork”). The verb is from Middle English braunchen, from the noun.

noun

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. (chiefly Southern US) A creek or stream which flows into a larger river.
   branch water
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
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.
   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. 2012-01, Robert L. Dorit, “Rereading Darwin”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 2012-11-14, page 23
9. (nautical) A certificate given by Trinity House to a pilot qualified to take navigational control of a ship in British waters.
10. (computing) 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.

verb

1. (intransitive) To arise from the trunk or a larger branch of a tree.
2. (intransitive) To produce branches.
   The tree throve and branched so heavily that the windows of Lower West and the Doll's Flat were darkened. 1944, Emily Carr, “Life Loves Living”, in The House of All Sorts
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.
5. (transitive) To strip of branches.
   They cut down a young pear-tree, branch it, and carry it home. 1890, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 2, page 55
6. (transitive, colloquial) To discipline (a union member) at a branch meeting.
   His staff were 'not journalists, but Communists', he maintained. Nonetheless, in 1948 his vigorous editorship took the paper's circulation to 120,000 a day. The following year, he was 'branched' by the National Union of Journalists for an intemperate attack on Fleet Street. 2003, Paul Routledge, The Bumper Book of British Lefties, page 199