What does brast mean?
Brast is an archaic past tense and past participle of the verb 'burst', meaning to break open or fly apart suddenly and violently. In earlier periods of English, verbs formed their past tenses in varied ways that later standardized, and 'brast' was one accepted way of putting 'burst' into the past. It survives chiefly in historical documents, early translations such as the King James Bible, and the works of writers like John Milton, where it lends a rugged, forceful tone to descriptions of things splitting asunder — dams giving way, vessels breaking on rocks, or grief overwhelming the heart. Today the word has no place in ordinary usage; modern English uses 'burst' for every tense without change. Encountering 'brast' is therefore usually a signal that a text predates modern standardization, and readers should understand it simply as 'burst'.
verb (archaic)An archaic past tense and past participle of the verb 'burst', meaning broke open or apart suddenly and violently.
- Archaic past tense and past participle of 'burst': to have broken open or apart suddenly and violently.
"The old dam brast under the weight of the spring floods."
"The river's banks brast beneath the sudden thaw."
"In the old chronicle, the vessel brast asunder upon the rocks."
Before English settled on 'burst' for every tense, writers reached for 'brast' — a word you can still find cracking open dams and hearts in the King James Bible and Milton.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of brast
Brast derives from Old English 'berstan', meaning to break suddenly, whose strong past-tense forms included variants that developed into 'brast'. It belongs to the Germanic family of break-words, cognate with Old Norse 'bresta' and related to modern English 'burst' and 'brittle'. As English verb forms regularized over the early modern period, 'brast' gave way entirely to the invariant 'burst', leaving it as a relic of Middle English inflection found mainly in older literature.
How brast is actually used
'Brast' is strictly archaic and appears only in historical texts, biblical prose, and literary imitation of earlier English styles. Modern writing uses 'burst' as both present and past tense; using 'brast' today is a deliberate stylistic or antiquarian choice.
Easily confused with brast
'Brast' is simply the archaic past tense form of 'burst'; in modern English only 'burst' is used, with 'burst' itself serving as both present and past tense.