Bránila

Bránila is a feminine singular past tense form of the Czech verb bránit, meaning to defend or protect. It is used in Czech (and Slovak) when the subject is female and the action occurred in the past. The form appears in narrative and reported speech to describe a defender who is a woman; corresponding forms exist for other genders and numbers (for example bránil for masculine singular and bránilo for neuter singular).

Etymology and relatives: bránila derives from the Slavic root brán-, found in related languages with the sense of defending or guarding. The verb bránit shares cognates across West and South Slavic languages, such as Polish broniła and Slovak bránila, reflecting a common Proto-Slavic ancestry.

Usage notes: bránila can refer to defending a person, a place, an idea, or one's rights. It emphasizes active defense rather than passive protection and is suitable for both formal writing and everyday speech. As a past-tense form, it requires a feminine singular subject; the same action performed by a male subject would use bránil, and plural subjects use corresponding plural forms.

Example sentences:

- Ona bránila město před útokem. (She defended the city against the attack.)

- Na konferenci bránila své argumenty s jasnými důkazy. (At the conference she defended her arguments with clear evidence.)

Bránila thus functions as a key feminine past-tense form within a broader family of Slavic defense-related verbs.