What does brattice mean?
A brattice is a partition — typically made of boards, planks, or heavy fabric — built across a mine shaft or underground passage to control how ventilating air moves through the workings. By dividing a tunnel into separate intake and return compartments, a brattice ensures that fresh air reaches miners at the working face while foul air, dust, and dangerous gases are carried away. The word belongs firmly to the specialized vocabulary of mining engineering, especially historical coal mining, where wooden brattices were essential before mechanical fans became widespread. In modern practice, flexible 'brattice cloth' serves the same purpose in temporary installations. Though obscure outside the industry, the term captures a vivid piece of mining history: for centuries, miners' lives depended on these humble walls of timber and sacking that quietly steered breath itself through the darkness underground.
nounA partition or lining of boards, planks, or heavy fabric erected in a mine shaft or passage to direct and control the flow of ventilating air.
- A partition of boards, planks, or sacking in a mine shaft or roadway to guide the current of ventilating air.
- (Mining) The airway or compartment created by such a partition.
"The miners repaired the brattice so that fresh air would reach the far end of the gallery."
"Miners built a brattice across the drift to carry fresh air to the working face."
"The inspector noted that torn brattice cloth was allowing stale air to recirculate through the return way."
Standard regular plural; the singular is more common in technical descriptions of a single airway partition.
"Old colliery plans show the positions of the brattices in each level."
Before electric fans, entire mine ventilation systems hung on wooden walls called brattices — the difference between breathable air and deadly gas was often just a row of boards.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does brattice come from?
Brattice derives from Middle English 'bretaske' or 'brattis', borrowed from Old French 'bretesche', which denoted a wooden partition or hoarding — originally the timber parapet of a fortification. The French term itself is of Germanic origin, related to words for boards or planks. Over time the military sense fell away, and by the early modern period 'brattice' had settled into its specialized mining sense of an airflow-directing partition, alongside the architectural derivative 'brattishing'.
Related word forms
How brattice is actually used
Brattice is technical vocabulary confined almost entirely to coal-mining and underground-ventilation contexts; it is rarely encountered in general prose. It functions chiefly as a countable noun, and the derived term 'brattice cloth' refers to the heavy jute or plastic sheeting used for temporary partitions in modern mines.
Easily confused with brattice
A lattice is an open framework of crossed strips or bars, whereas a brattice is a solid partition used to channel airflow in mines.