BROOD
What does "BROOD" mean?
To think deeply and gloomily about something; also a family of young birds hatched together.
Meanings
- To dwell moodily and at length on a worry or grievance. He sat in the dark and brooded over the rejection.
- To sit on or warm eggs so as to hatch them. The hen brooded patiently for three weeks.
- All the young birds or other animals produced at one hatching or birth. A brood of ducklings followed the mother across the lane.
- A person's children, regarded as a group. She herded her noisy brood into the car. informal
Did you know?
- The 17-year cicadas are organized into numbered 'broods', and a single brood can spend exactly 17 years underground before surfacing all at once - one of the longest life cycles of any insect.
Word origin
From Old English 'brod' (offspring, hatching), of Germanic origin and related to the word 'breed'; the 'ponder gloomily' sense comes from the image of a bird sitting fixedly over its eggs.
Remember it
BROOD has two O's - two staring eyes sitting still and worried over the nest.
A little poem
She broods on what was said, and what was not;
above her, a real hen broods her clutch-
one warms a life, one cools into a knot.
tercet
Wordplay
- The hen sat in the corner all day, completely silent. Was she upset? No - just brooding.
What it teaches
Sit too long on a worry and you hatch nothing; sit the right while on an idea and it grows wings.
Quick facts
What does BROOD mean?
To think deeply and gloomily about something; also a family of young birds hatched together.
Is BROOD a valid word?
Yes — BROOD is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is BROOD?
BROOD has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does BROOD come from?
From Old English 'brod' (offspring, hatching), of Germanic origin and related to the word 'breed'; the 'ponder gloomily' sense comes from the image of a bird sitting fixedly over its eggs.
What can BROOD teach us?
Sit too long on a worry and you hatch nothing; sit the right while on an idea and it grows wings.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.