brood
a number of young produced or hatched at one time; a family of offspring or young.
a breed, species, group, or kind: The museum exhibited a brood of monumental sculptures.
to sit upon (eggs) to hatch, as a bird; incubate.
(of a bird) to warm, protect, or cover (young) with the wings or body.
to think or worry persistently or moodily about; ponder: He brooded the problem.
to sit upon eggs to be hatched, as a bird.
to dwell on a subject or to meditate with morbid persistence (usually followed by over or on).
kept for breeding: a brood hen.
brood above / over to cover, loom, or seem to fill the atmosphere or scene: The haunted house on the hill brooded above the village.
Origin of brood
1synonym study For brood
Other words for brood
Other words from brood
- broodless, adjective
- un·brood·ed, adjective
Words that may be confused with brood
- brewed, brood
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use brood in a sentence
As a purplish-red sun set, I sat brooding over my dataset on rat brains.
An Existential Crisis in Neuroscience - Issue 94: Evolving | Grigori Guitchounts | December 30, 2020 | NautilusThe scientists videotaped each brood for two consecutive days and nights to understand how the owlets interacted and attached a tiny microphone backpack to each chick to help identify individual calls.
Barn owlets share food with their younger siblings in exchange for grooming | Pratik Pawar | June 16, 2020 | Science NewsBradley was a man who worried deeply and brooded over the lives lost among his commands.
Blood in the Sand: When James Jones Wrote a Grunt’s View of D-Day | James Jones | November 15, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThe more I brooded about these and other Level D options, the more my confidence ebbed.
A Mathematically Impossible Novel: Manil Suri Explains “The City of Devi” | Manil Suri | March 15, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTDr. Johnson, left alone for long hours of the day, brooded on his own infirmities.
In those dim aisles and mighty halls brooded a Presence that he knew could soothe and comfort.
The Wave | Algernon BlackwoodTHE Lake at last—a sheet of shining metal brooded over by drooping trees.
Summer | Edith WhartonLong he sat, and the darkness fell over the moor, matching the darkness that brooded over his heart and mind.
The Underworld | James C. WelshIt was with him, therefore, that I proposed to my fellow-captive to try our long-brooded and cherished scheme of deliverance.
Confessions of a Thug | Philip Meadows TaylorThere was sadness in it, and pain, and the gray wintry sky brooded of sorrows to come.
The Underworld | James C. Welsh
British Dictionary definitions for brood
/ (bruːd) /
a number of young animals, esp birds, produced at one hatching
all the offspring in one family: often used jokingly or contemptuously
a group of a particular kind; breed
(as modifier) kept for breeding: a brood mare
(of a bird)
to sit on or hatch (eggs)
(tr) to cover (young birds) protectively with the wings
(when intr , often foll by on, over or upon) to ponder morbidly or persistently
Origin of brood
1Derived forms of brood
- brooding, noun, adjective
- broodingly, adverb
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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