Definition of "branch"

branch

/bɹɑːntʃ/

noun
plural branches
1. The woody part of a tree arising from the trunk and usually dividing.
  Quotations
  Selfe loue, to him ſelf tender, to the reſt tough, / Is, of iuſt iuſtice, neither roote, braunce, nor bough. / Loue (namely ſelfe loue) corruptibly growyng, / Is cheefe lodeſter of lets, in iuſtice ſhowing.
  1556, John Heywood, chapter 7, in The Spider and the Flie. […], London: […] Tho[mas] Powell; republished as A[dolphus] W[illiam] Ward, editor, The Spider and the Flie. […] (Publications of the Spenser Society, New Series; 6), Manchester: […] [Charles E. Simms] for the Spenser Society, 1894, page 50
2. Any of the parts of something that divides like the branch of a tree.
3. (chiefly Southern US) A creek or stream which flows into a larger river.
4. (geometry) One of the portions of a curve that extends outwards to an indefinitely great distance.
5. A location of an organization with several locations.
6. A line of family descent, in distinction from some other line or lines from the same stock; any descendant in such a line.
  Quotations
  his father, a younger branch of the ancient stock
  1609, Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall. […], new edition, London: […] B. Law, […]; Penzance, Cornwall: J. Hewett, published 1769
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.
  Quotations
  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 January, Robert L. Dorit, “Rereading Darwin”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 14 November 2012, 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
third-person singular simple present branches, present participle branching, simple past and past participle branched
1. (intransitive) To arise from the trunk or a larger branch of a tree.
2. (intransitive) To produce branches.
  Quotations
  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.
  Quotations
  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.
  Quotations
  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

Definition of "branch"

branch

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verb

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