broad a OED ~ a 4 b for sense 1; EDD adj 3 ' 7 for sense 2; cp OED arrow sb 10: Broad Arrow-head 'arrow-head-shaped mark, used by British Board of Ordnance'; PHILLIPPS 52: broad fig for combs. in sense 3.
   1 Of a day, fine, sunny, clear.
   P 60-64 'Tis a broad day (a lovely day). Q 71-13 A broad day is a very clear day.
   2 Of speech, markedly dialectal.
   T 187-65 They had some old broad talk. When we'd say we was going to a place, he'd say, 'I must go thert.' And then he'd start to tell me about how 'twas over thert [in] England.
   3 Comb broad arrow: mark placed upon a building to indicate government ownership.
   T 41-64 [The] sheriff was a feller that go round and seize your house. If you couldn't pay he'd put what he called the broad arrow [on the building]. Q 67-49 When a man owed money the law confiscated his property. The broad arrow was stamped on his house and this signified that the contents of the building did not belong to its owner.
   broad fig: term used to distinguish fig from raisin, which is also called fig; see FIG.
   1896 J A Folklore ix, 35 Figs are [called) broad figs.
   broad flake: platform built on poles and spread with boughs on which split cod are placed to dry; FLAKE.
   1792 CARTWRIGHT Gloss i, x [Flakes] are of two sorts, viz: Broad-flakes and Hand-flakes. 1819 ANSPACH 436 The broad flakes consist of a set of beams, supported by posts and shores, or stout pieces of timber standing perpendicularly under the beams, to which similar pieces are likewise fixed in a reclined position. In some places these broad flakes are as high as twenty or thirty feet from the ground.
   broad weed: knapweed (Centaurea nigra) (1898 N S Inst of Sci ix, 373).

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