Library / English Dictionary

BROOD

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The young of an animal cared for at one time

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("brood" is a kind of...):

animal group (a group of animals)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "brood"):

clutch (a number of birds hatched at the same time)

Derivation:

brood (sit on (eggs))

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Sit on (eggs)

Example:

The female covers the eggs

Synonyms:

brood; cover; hatch; incubate

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Hypernyms (to "brood" is one way to...):

multiply; procreate; reproduce (have offspring or produce more individuals of a given animal or plant)

"Brood" entails doing...:

sit; sit down (take a seat)

Verb group:

hatch (emerge from the eggs)

breed; cover (copulate with a female, used especially of horses)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

brood (the young of an animal cared for at one time)

brooder (apparatus consisting of a box designed to maintain a constant temperature by the use of a thermostat; used for chicks or premature infants)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Think moodily or anxiously about something

Synonyms:

brood; dwell

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "brood" is one way to...):

care; worry (be concerned with)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Sentence example:

Sam and Sue brood over the results of the experiment

Sense 3

Meaning:

Be in a huff; be silent or sullen

Synonyms:

brood; grizzle; stew

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "brood" is one way to...):

brood; pout; sulk (be in a huff and display one's displeasure)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Sense 4

Meaning:

Be in a huff and display one's displeasure

Example:

She is pouting because she didn't get what she wanted

Synonyms:

brood; pout; sulk

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

"Brood" entails doing...:

resent (feel bitter or indignant about)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "brood"):

brood; grizzle; stew (be in a huff; be silent or sullen)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sense 5

Meaning:

Hang over, as of something threatening, dark, or menacing

Example:

The terrible vision brooded over her all day long

Synonyms:

brood; bulk large; hover; loom

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "brood" is one way to...):

hang (be menacing, burdensome, or oppressive)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "brood"):

dominate; eclipse; overshadow (be greater in significance than)

Sentence frame:

Something is ----ing PP

Sentence examples:

Some big birds brood in the tree

There brood some big birds in the tree

Credits

 Context examples: 

I brooded by the hour together over the map, all the details of which I well remembered.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I managed to see him on a plausible pretext, but I seemed to read in his dark, deepset, brooding eyes that he was perfectly aware of my true business.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

All the bottom area round the water-edge was alive with their young ones, and with hideous mothers brooding upon their leathery, yellowish eggs.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Beth ate no more, but crept away to sit in her shadowy corner and brood over the delight to come, till the others were ready.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

It tarried, however: days and weeks passed: I had regained my normal state of health, but no new allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The Abbot alone sat gray and immutable, with a drawn face and a brooding eye.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

My uncle sat with tightened lips and a brooding brow.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But for some time longer he sat and brooded, the two remaining dogs crouching and trembling at his feet.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Several of this cursed brood, getting hold of the branches behind, leaped up into the tree, whence they began to discharge their excrements on my head; however, I escaped pretty well by sticking close to the stem of the tree, but was almost stifled with the filth, which fell about me on every side.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

And the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded awhile on his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, least by chance some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light there.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)