Brittany

• (female given name): Britney, Brittney
• (region): Britanny (obsolete)

Inherited from Middle English Bretany, Brytany, itself borrowed from Medieval Latin Britannia, applied to Brittany from at least the 6th century, and reinforced by Middle French Bretagne. See Britannia for more. Doublet of Britain and Britannia.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈbɹɪ.tə.ni/, /ˈbɹɪt.ni/

• Audio (US):

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Brittany

2. A cultural region, historical province, and peninsula in northwest France. [from 15th c.]
   • c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vi]:

     First, will I see the Coronation, / And then to Britanny Ile crosse the Sea, / To effect this marriage, so it please my Lord.

   • 1905, Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall, Our Island Story, page 35:

     So Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon fled away to that part of France called Brittany, where they remained in saftey for many years.

4. An administrative region of northwest France, including most of the historic region of Brittany. [from 20th c.]
5. (obsolete, chiefly poetic) The British Isles. [15th–19th c.]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     The noble Thamis […] seem'd to stoupe afore / With bowed backe, by reason of the lode / And auncient heavy burden which he bore / Of that faire City, wherein make abode / So many learned impes, that shoote abrode, / And with their braunches spred all Britany […].

6. A female given name transferred from the place name, of 1980s and 1990s American usage.
   • 1990, Alice Munro, Friend of My Youth, →ISBN, page 102:

     - - - No one has family names. These girls with rooster hair I see on the streets. They pick the names. They're the mothers." "I have a granddaughter named Brittany," Hazel said. " And I have heard of a little girl called Cappuccino." "Cappuccino! Is that true? Why don't they call one Cassaulet? Fettuccini? Alsace-Lorraine?"

   • 1999, Andrew Pyper, chapter 10, in Lost Girls:

     Names of the times. Borrowed from soap opera characters of prominence fifteen years ago, who have since been replaced by spiffy new models: the social-climbing Brittany now an unscrupulous Burke, the generous Pamela a refitted, urbanized Parker.

   • 2025 April 24, Anna Silman, “Now comes the ‘womanosphere’: the anti-feminist media telling women to be thin, fertile and Republican”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     The leading voices of the womanosphere are using a similar strategy. As Brittany Hugoboom put it in an op–ed for the rightwing outlet Quillette: “Conservatives will never win if they imagine themselves as combatants atop defensive battlements, hurling abuse on the mass media. We need to involve ourselves in the creation of pop culture.”

Brittany (plural Brittanies)

1. (prison slang) A coward.
2. A gun dog of a particular breed.

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