branch

1. 1

   The woody part of a tree arising from the trunk and usually dividing.

   • 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.
   • And they played softly in the Aeolian mode a music that was like the wailing of wind through bare branches on a moonless night, and the Red Foliot leaned forth from his high seat and recited this lamentation: […]
2. 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. 3

   A creek or stream which flows into a larger river.Southern-US

   • branch water
4. 4

   One of the portions of a curve that extends outwards to an indefinitely great distance.

   • the branches of a hyperbola
5. 5

   A location of an organization with several locations.

   • Our main branch is downtown, and we have branches in all major suburbs.
6. 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. 7

   A local congregation of the LDS Church that is not large enough to form a ward; see Wikipedia article on ward in LDS church.Mormonism

8. 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 millisecon
9. 9

   A certificate given by Trinity House to a pilot qualified to take navigational control of a ship in British waters.

10. 10

    A sequence of code that is conditionally executed.

ant. crotch

1. 1

   To arise from the trunk or a larger branch of a tree.intransitive

2. 2

   To produce branches.intransitive

   • The tree throve and branched so heavily that the windows of Lower West and the Doll's Flat were darkened.
3. 3

   To (cause to) divide into separate parts or subdivisions.ambitransitive

4. 4

   To jump to a different location in a program, especially as the result of a conditional statement.intransitive

5. 5

   To strip of branches.transitive

   • They cut down a young pear-tree, branch it, and carry it home.
6. 6

   To discipline (a union member) at a branch meeting.colloquialtransitive

   • 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 i

syn. ramify