brood

American  

[brood] / brud /

noun

1. a number of young produced or hatched at one time; a family of offspring or young.

2. a breed, species, group, or kind.

   The museum exhibited a brood of monumental sculptures.

   Synonyms:

   strain, stock, line

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verb (used with object)

1. to sit upon (eggs) to hatch, as a bird; incubate.

2. (of a bird) to warm, protect, or cover (young) with the wings or body.

3. to think or worry persistently or moodily about; ponder.

   He brooded the problem.

verb (used without object)

1. to sit upon eggs to be hatched, as a bird.

2. to dwell on a subject or to meditate with morbid persistence (usually followed by over oron ).

adjective

1. kept for breeding.

   a brood hen.

verb phrase

1. brood above / over to cover, loom, or seem to fill the atmosphere or scene.

   The haunted house on the hill brooded above the village.

brood British  

/ bruːd /

noun

1. a number of young animals, esp birds, produced at one hatching

2. all the offspring in one family: often used jokingly or contemptuously

3. a group of a particular kind; breed

4. (as modifier) kept for breeding

   a brood mare

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verb

1. 1. to sit on or hatch (eggs)

   2. (tr) to cover (young birds) protectively with the wings

2. to ponder morbidly or persistently

Related Words

Brood, litter refer to young creatures. Brood is especially applied to the young of fowls and birds hatched from eggs at one time and raised under their mother's care: a brood of young turkeys. Litter is applied to a group of young animals brought forth at a birth: a litter of kittens or pups.

Other Word Forms

• brooding
  noun
• broodingly
  adverb
• broodless
  adjective
• unbrooded
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of brood

First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English brōd; cognate with Dutch broed, German Brut; see breed

Explanation

A brood is a group of young born at the same time — like a brood of chicks — but your parents might use the word for you and your siblings: "We're taking the whole brood to the movies tonight." Brood is also what a chicken does when she sits on her eggs to hatch them. You can also brood, when you worry and sulk and dwell on something obsessively — maybe as tedious as sitting on eggs, but no chicks when you're done. Things like clouds or silence can also brood, hanging over something ominously, as a storm that broods over the sea, sending fishermen scurrying for safety.

Example Sentences

The past has not quite closed in—he and we will be left to brood about journeys made and not made.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 16, 2026

Then there was his promise to build her a dance studio on their massive estate; he turned it into a schoolhouse for their growing brood of children.

From Salon • Apr. 8, 2026

Farr, 56, purchased the four-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom property in 2011 when she and her then-husband, Seung Yong Chung, realized the Spanish bungalow they had been living in could no longer accommodate their rapidly expanding brood.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 7, 2026

According to the study, "excessive heat, with maximal temperatures exceeding 40°C, can reduce colony populations by impairing the thermoregulation of brood or by exposing adults to temperatures that shorten their lifespans."

From Science Daily • Jan. 13, 2026

And as he built his own program, he began to brood on it.

From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown

Related Words

• daydream
• fret
• grieve
• meditate
• mope
• ruminate
• sulk