Brace

Brace, a support or stay of various kinds. In a square-rigged vessel a rope used for wheeling or traversing a sail upon a mast, in order to make it correspond with the direction of the wind or the course of the ship. It is fastened to the yard-arm. The braces of all yards are double, except those of top-gallant and, when these are carried, spritsail and topsail yards. The mizen yard has vangs, or fangs, instead of braces. A brace is also a piece of iron supporting, for example, a poop lantern, or a screwshaft. In Architecture it is a piece put across the angles of a building.