Brace

(brās.) [FromL. brachium, the arm.] (Arch.) A piece of timber framed in with level-joints, to keep the building from swerving either way. When the B. is fixed into the principal rafters, it is sometimes called a strut.-(Mus.) A double curved line (), placed | vertically at the beginning of the stave of a composition, in order to guide the eye with greater facility when more than two staves are joined together; a score, is when a union of B. occurs, as in concerted pieces, where a smaller B. is usually drawn inside the larger one, in order to distinguish each part.-(Naut.) Braces are ropes belonging to all the yards of a ship, except the mizzen, two to each yard, reeved through blocks that are fastened to pendants attached to the yard-arms. To brace about, is to turn the yards round for the opposite tack. To brace to, is to check or ease off the lee braces, and round in the weather ones, to a ist in tacking. [s. 110]