noun

• (usually in the plural) A metal bridle formerly used as a torture device to hold the head of a scold and restrain the tongue.
• (obsolete, UK, Scotland, dialect, usually in the plural) A sort of bridle with wooden side pieces.
  "Your armour gude ye mauna shaw, / Nor yet appear like men o' weir; / As country lads be a' array'd, / Wi' branks and brecham on each mare."

verb

• (UK, Scotland, dialect) To hold up and toss the head; applied to horses as spurning the bit.
• (Scotland) To prance; to caper.
  "Donald came branking down the brae Wi' twenty thousand men."

noun

• (UK, dialect) Buckwheat.
  "One - third of brank-ground , or mixed with any other kind of grain or roots, is as large a proportion as can be given with safety"