Meaning

noun broken husks of the seeds of cereal grains that are separated from the flour by sifting

noun food prepared from the husks of cereal grains

originFrom Middle English bran, branne, bren, from Old French bren, bran (“bran, filth”), from Gaulish brennos (“rotten”), from Proto-Celtic *bragnos (“rotten, foul”) (compare Welsh braen (“stench”), Irish bréan (“rancid”), Walloon brin (“excrement”)), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreHg- (compare Latin fragrāre (“to smell strongly”), Dutch brak (“hound”)).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0