Branded - Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words
Branded
[ 1,,G2743, kausteriazo ]to burn in with a brading iron" (cp. Eng., "caustic"), is found, in the best mss., in 1 Timothy 4:2, RV "branded." Others have kauteriazo (from kauterion, "a branding-iron," "cauterize"), to mark by "branding," an act not quite so severe as that indicated by the former. The reference is to apostates whose consciences are "branded" with the effects of their sin. See SEARED.
Note: In the RV of Galatians 6:17, "branded" does not represent a word in the original; it serves to bring out the force of the Apostle's metaphor of bearing in his body the stigmata, the marks, of the Lord Jesus. The reference is not to the branding of slaves, soldiers and criminals, but rather to the religious devotee, who "branded" himself with the mark of the god whom he specially worshipped. So Paul describes the physical marks due to the lictor's rods at Philippi and to the stones at Lystra, marks which, while not self-inflicted, betokened his devotion to Christ and his rejoicing therein.