brood

Etymology

From Middle English brood, brod, from Old English brōd (“brood; foetus; breeding, hatching”), from Proto-Germanic *brōduz (“heat, breeding”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrē- (“breath, mist, vapour, steam”). Cognate with Scots brude, brod (“brood, child, offspring”), Dutch broed (“spawn”), Low German Broot (“spawn, breeding, incubation, brood”), German Brut (“breeding, progeny, incubation, brood”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: bro͞od, IPA^(key): /bɹuːd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophones: brewed
• Rhymes: -uːd

Noun

brood (plural broods)

1. The young of certain animals, especially a group of young birds or fowl hatched at one time by the same mother.
   • Bible, Luke xiii. 34

     As a hen doth gather her brood under her wings.

2. (uncountable) The young of any egg-laying creature, especially if produced at the same time.
3. The eggs and larvae of social insects such as bees, ants and some wasps, especially when gathered together in special brood chambers or combs within the colony.
4. The children in one family.
   • 2017 May 13, Barney Ronay, “Antonio Conte’s brilliance has turned Chelsea’s pop-up team into champions”, in the Guardian‎:

     Conte had arrived a week early despite spending his summer with Italy at the Euros. Exhausted, he went home during the international break to see his family and brood.

5. That which is bred or produced; breed; species.
   • 1598, George Chapman translation of Homer's Iliad, Book 2:

     ... flocks of the airy brood,

     Cranes, geese or long-neck'd swans, here, there, proud of their pinions fly ...

   • 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 19:

     Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,

     And make the earth devour her own sweet brood ...

6. (mining) Heavy waste in tin and copper ores.

Verb

brood (third-person singular simple present broods, present participle brooding, simple past and past participle brooded)

1. (transitive) To keep an egg warm to make it hatch.

   In some species of birds, both the mother and father brood the eggs.

2. (transitive) To protect.

   Under the rock was a midshipman fish, brooding a mass of eggs.

3. (intransitive) To dwell upon moodily and at length (with adpositions generally being either about or over)

   He sat brooding about the upcoming battle, fearing the outcome.

   • Nathaniel Hawthorne

     Brooding over all these matters, the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit.

   • Tennyson

     when with downcast eyes we muse and brood

   • 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald, chapter IX, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, OCLC 884653065; republished New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953, →ISBN:

     And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.

Further reading

• Brood (honey bee) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Dobro, dobro, droob

Etymology

From Dutch brood.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /brʊət/

Noun

brood (plural brode)

1. bread

Etymology

From Middle Dutch brôot, from Old Dutch *brōd, from Proto-Germanic *braudą.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -oːt
• IPA^(key): /broːt/

• audio

  (file)

Noun

Gesneden wittebrood
Sliced white bread

brood n (plural broden, diminutive broodje n)

1. bread
2. (by extension) Similar bakery product or other baked dish
3. (metonymically) livelihood, especially in expressions like dagelijks brood

Anagrams

• boord

Alternative forms

• brod, brode

Etymology

From Old English brād.

Adjective

brood

1. broad