browse
[brouz]
- to eat, nibble at, or feed on (leaves, tender shoots, or other soft vegetation).
- to graze; pasture on.
- to look through or glance at casually or randomly: He's browsing the shelves for something to read.
- to access and view (website content) with a Web browser, usually without looking for something specific: a secure way to browse the Web.
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- to feed on or nibble at foliage, lichen, berries, etc.
- to graze.
- to glance at random through a book, magazine, etc.
- to look leisurely at goods displayed for sale, as in a store.
- to access and view websites with a Web browser, as in mobile browsing; online browsing: If you love to browse while on the road, you can easily take advantage of free Wi-Fi .
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- tender shoots or twigs of shrubs and trees as food for cattle, deer, etc.
- an act or instance of browsing.
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Origin of browse
1400–50; late Middle English browsen, perhaps a verbal derivative of Anglo-French broz, plural of brot shoot, new growth, Old French brost < Old Low Franconian *brust bud, noun derivative of *brustjan; compare Old Saxon brustian to come into bud
Synonyms
See more synonyms for browse on Thesaurus.com3. scan, skim, examine, peruse, check.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for browsing
Contemporary Examples
“She spent 20 minutes browsing the shelves of Baby Gap,” a source said.
While browsing a Beverly Hills record store he was approached by a “weird dwarfish man with huge eyeglasses”.
You just need to breach a fence and know their browsing areas.
While browsing through the archives, we at The Daily Beast stumbled upon this marvelous photograph.
Daily Beast Caption-Writing ContestJuly 17, 2013
While browsing there, I overheard a staffer touting a film by Erika Lust to a middle-aged male customer as an FPA winner.
Historical Examples
Litton went without his lunch that day, but he was browsing on memories of his visitor.
In a Little TownRupert Hughes
"I'll pass the butter," said he, while trying to pass the browsing goat.
The New Pun BookThomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
The cab-horse, who was browsing near, lifted his head with a sigh.
Dorothy and the Wizard in OzL. Frank Baum
Marshes were replaced by meadows and browsing by grazing mammals.
The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4)J. Arthur Thomson
They were browsing on the grass, unconscious that an enemy was near.
The Giraffe HuntersMayne Reid
browse
- to look through (a book, articles for sale in a shop, etc) in a casual leisurely manner
- computing to search for and read hypertext, esp on the Internet
- (of deer, goats, etc) to feed upon (vegetation) by continual nibbling
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- the act or an instance of browsing
- the young twigs, shoots, leaves, etc, on which certain animals feed
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Word Origin
C15: from French broust, brost (modern French brout) bud, of Germanic origin; compare Old Saxon brustian to bud
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
Word Origin and History for browsing
browse
v.
mid-15c., "feed on buds," from Middle French brouster, from Old French broster "to sprout, bud," from brost "young shoot, twig," probably from Proto-Germanic *brustjan "to bud," from PIE *bhreus- "to swell, sprout" (see breast (n.)). Lost its final -t in English on the mistaken notion that the letter was a past participle inflection. Figurative extension to "peruse" (books) is 1870s, American English. Related: Browsed; browsing.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper