brood

From Middle English brood, brod, from Old English brōd (“brood; foetus; breeding, hatching”), from Proto-Germanic *brōduz (“heat, breeding”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreh₁- (“breath, mist, vapour, steam”).

• enPR: bro͞od, IPA^(key): /bɹuːd/

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• Homophones: brewed
• Rhymes: -uːd

brood (countable and uncountable, 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. (countable, uncountable) 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. (countable, uncountable) The children in one family; offspring.
   • c. 1610-11, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act III scene ii:

     Ay, lord, she will become thy bed, I warrant, / And bring thee forth brave 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. Parentage.
7. (mining) Heavy waste in tin and copper ores.

• flock, litter, young, get, issue, offspring, posterity, progeny, seed, kin

brood (not comparable)

1. Kept or reared for breeding, said of animals.

   brood ducks

   a brood mare

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 (something that is gradually maturing); to foster.

   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[rancis] 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.

4. (intransitive) To be bred.

• Brood (honey bee) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Dobro, boord, dobro, droob

From Dutch brood.

• IPA^(key): /brʊət/

brood (plural brode)

1. bread

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

• Rhymes: -oːt
• IPA^(key): /broːt/

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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

• boord

• brod, brode

From Old English brād.

brood

1. broad

• English: broad
• Scots: braid