Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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BRECKAN, BRECKEN, Brecan, Breaken, Brechan, n. Sc. variants of Eng. bracken. The name is given to any large and coarse kind of fern, gen. Pteris aquilina. The word is often used in the sing. in a collective sense. Also used attrib. [brɛkŋ, ′brɛkən]Sc. 1724–1727 Ramsay T. T. Misc. (1733) 222:
Nae birns, brier, or breckens gave trouble to me, If I found the berries right ripen'd for thee.Sc. 1904 B. of Otterburn in Ballads (ed. Child) No. 161 C. xxviii.:
Gae lay me in the breaken bush That grows on yonder lee.Abd. 1844 W. Thom Rhymes and Recoll. 45:
But wiled an' wiled the lithest beild Wi' breckans happet roun'.m.Sc. 1979 George Campbell Hay in Joy Hendry Chapman 23-4 (1985) 85:
Brecken will grow, docken will grow,
gerss will grow an' crofts will growLnk. 1929 T. S. Cairncross in Scots Mag. (March) 454:
He'd better be amang the brecan green Than peerin' on and readin' oot his een.Ayr. 1795 Burns Their Groves o' Sweet Myrtle (Cent. ed.) i.:
Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green breckan.Gall. c.1870 W. Stewart Ross in Bards of Gall. (ed. Harper 1889) 67:
Over the neck in breckens In the burning summer days.

Hence: (1) breckany, ‡brechanie, adj., covered with brackens; (2) breckaned, adj., idem (Kcb.¹ 1935).(1) Gall. 1824 MacTaggart Gallov. Encycl. 91:
Breckany braes, rural solitudes, growing with fern; the haunts of innocence and rustic poets.Rxb. 1847 J. Halliday Rustic Bard 311:
The summer sun beats on the brechanie brae.

(2) w.Dmf. 1912 A. Anderson Surfaceman's Later Poems 38: [It] seemed like a ghaist to rise Frae the breekaned hicht o' the steep Knowe Hill.