An archaic or dialectal term meaning to break, crush, or grind into pieces, especially of grain being made into flour.
From Old English 'brædan' or similar roots related to breaking and grinding. The word likely comes from Proto-Germanic roots related to 'bread,' since bread-making requires breaking down grain—the brey-ing process.
The word 'brey' connects grinding grain to the very origins of agriculture—when humans first learned to break down hard seeds into flour, this process was so fundamental that the word probably predates many modern languages.
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