Jack Malvern, "
'Brat' is Collins's word of the year,"
The Times (November 1, 2024):
"Brat" has its origins in the 15th century, when Chaucer used it to mean a cloak of coarse cloth, and by the early 16th century it came to refer to an unwanted child.
Eric Thomson sent me the link. He comments:
Chaucer's 15th century amounted to fewer than 300 days.
Brat, or brat n.1 at least, appears in a triple gloss in the 10th century Lindisfarne Gospels (Matthew 5:40 et ei qui vult tecum iudicio contendere et tunicam tuam tollere remitte ei et pallium = And if a man will contend with thee in judgment, and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him), so its history in English is five centuries earlier.
Oxford English Dictionary s.v. brat, n.1:
