broil

• IPA^(key): /bɹɔɪl/
• Rhymes: -ɔɪl

From Middle English broillen, brulen (“to broil, cook”), from Anglo-Norman bruiller, broiller (“to broil, roast”) and Old French brusler, bruller (“to broil, roast, char”), a blend of Old French bruir (“to burn”), of Germanic origin; and Old French usler (“to scorch”), from Latin ustulāre (“to scorch”).

Old French bruir (“to burn”) comes from Frankish *brōjan (“to burn, scald”), from Proto-Germanic *brewwaną (“to brew”), from Proto-Indo-European *bherw-, *bhrew- (“to boil, seethe”), and is cognate with Middle High German brüejen (“to singe, burn, scald”), Middle Dutch broeyen (“to scald, heat”). More at brew.

broil (third-person singular simple present broils, present participle broiling, simple past and past participle broiled)

1. (transitive, Canada, US) To cook by direct, radiant heat. (British: grill)
2. (transitive, Canada, US) To expose to great heat.
3. (intransitive, Canada, US) To be exposed to great heat.

broil (plural broils)

1. Food prepared by broiling.
   • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard

     Cluffe, externally acquiescing, had yet made up his mind, if a decent opportunity presented, to be detected and made prisoner, and that the honest troubadours should sup on a hot broil, and sip some of the absent general's curious Madeira at the feet of their respective mistresses, with all the advantage which a situation so romantic and so private would offer.

From Middle English broilen (“to quarrel, present in disorder”), from Anglo-Norman broiller (“to mix up”), from Vulgar Latin *brodiculāre (“to jumble together”) from *brodum (“broth, stew”), from Frankish *brod (“broth”), from Proto-Germanic *bruþą (“broth”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhreue-, *bherw-, *bhrew- (“to heat, boil, brew”). Cognate with Old High German brod (“broth”), Old English broþ (“broth”). More at broth.

broil (third-person singular simple present broils, present participle broiling, simple past and past participle broiled)

1. (transitive) to cause a rowdy disturbance; embroil
2. (intransitive) (obsolete) to brawl

broil (plural broils)

1. (archaic) A brawl; a rowdy disturbance.
   • 1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, Act I, verses 1-2

     So, I am safe emerged from these broils! / Amid the wreck of thousands I am whole

   • Burke

     I will own that there is a haughtiness and fierceness in human nature which will which will cause innumerable broils, place men in what situation you please.

   • 1840, Robert Chambers, ‎William Chambers, Chambers's Edinburgh Journal (volume 8, page 382)

     Since the provinces declared their independence, broils and squabblings of one sort and another have greatly retarded the advancement which they might otherwise have made.

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