The "brand" portion of "brand-new" is a reference to a hot furnace or
a firebrand. So something that is brand-new is freshly made, or "hot
from the oven."
"Brand-new...
from BRAND + NEW, as if fresh and glowing from the furnace; cf.
Shakespeare's 'fire-new'."
Source: Oxford English Dictionary (unabridged), 1971
"brand
O.E. brand, brond 'firebrand, piece of burning wood, torch,' and
(poetic) 'sword,' from P.Gmc. *brandaz, from base *bran-/*bren- (see
burn). Meaning of 'identifying mark made by a hot iron" (1552)
broadened 1827 to "a particular make of goods.' Brand-new is c.1570
and must have meant 'fresh from the fire' (Shakespeare has fire-new)."
Online Etymology Dictionary: brand
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=brand
"The answer to our little mystery lies in the original meaning of
'brand,' which was 'burning or fire,' in this case specifically a
furnace, forge or kiln. Something 'brand new' was an item, whether
pottery or forged metal, fresh from the fires of its creation, and the
phrase dates back to the late 16th century. Shakespeare used the
expression 'fire new' to mean the same thing."
Word Detective: Two scoops of reasons
http://www.word-detective.com/back-m2.html
"Brand spanking new" is a somewhat later version of the phrase:
"spanking (adj.)
1666, 'very big or fine,' later (especially of horses) 'moving at a
lively pace' (1738), perhaps from a Scand. source (cf. Dan. spanke 'to
strut')."
Online Etymology Dictionary: spanking
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=spanking&searchmode=none
"The original sense of brand is 'a burning piece of wood in or just
taken from a fire'; other senses (e.g., 'a mark made by burning with a
hot iron'; 'an identifying mark (of any sort)'; and 'a distinctive
kind, class, etc.') all derive from this.
The expression brand-new literally means 'new as if fresh from the
fire'. It is first found in the late sixteenth century. A semantically
similar expression is fire-new, which is found in Shakespeare ('Your
fire-new stamp of honor is scarce current'--Richard III) and elsewhere
from the sixteenth century onwards...
Since someone is bound to ask about the phrase brand spanking new:
This spanking, which is of uncertain though possibly Scandinavian
origin, is a seventeenth-century word with such meanings as 'quick;
vigorous'; 'unusually fine, large, striking, etc.'; and as an adverb
'exceptionally; strikingly'. There is also a much earlier
(thirteenth-century) expression span-new (also, in combination with
our phrase, brand-span-new), where this span is a word of Old Norse
origin meaning 'a chip of wood'; span-new is now chiefly dialectal."
Random House: The Mavens' Word of the Day
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19971010
Google search strategy:
Google Web Search: "the phrase brand new"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22the+phrase+brand+new%22
Google Web Search: "the phrase brand spanking new"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22the+phrase+brand+spanking+new%22
I hope this is helpful. If anything is unclear or incomplete, please
request clarification; I'll be glad to offer further assistance before
you rate my answer.
Best regards,
pinkfreud |
