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brook

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See also: Brook

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English brouken (“to use, enjoy”), from Old English brūcan (“to enjoy, brook, use, possess, partake of, spend”), from Proto-West Germanic *brūkan, from Proto-Germanic *brūkaną (“to enjoy, use”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰruHg- (“to enjoy”).

Cognate with Saterland Frisian bruke (“to need”), Dutch bruiken (“to use”), German Low German bruken (“to need”), German brauchen (“to need”), Swedish bruka (“to use”), Icelandic brúka (“to use”).

Verb

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brook (third-person singular simple present brooks, present participle brooking, simple past and past participle brooked)

  1. (transitive, formal, chiefly in the negative) To bear; endure; support; put up with; tolerate.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:tolerate
    brook no refusal
    I will not brook any disobedience.
    I will brook no impertinence.
    • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter II, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 22:
      how shall I brook to be the first cause of difference between a father and son, to whom the averted look and the harsh word have been hitherto unknown?
    • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 6, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
      But Sophia's mother was not the woman to brook defiance. After a few moments' vain remonstrance her husband complied. His manner and appearance were suggestive of a satiated sea-lion.
    • 1966, Garcilaso de la Vega, H. V. Livermore, Karen Spalding, Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru (Abridged), Hackett Publishing, →ISBN, page 104:
      After delivering the reply he ordered the annalists, who have charge of the knots, to take note of it and include it in their tradition. By now the Spaniards, who were unable to brook the length of the discourse, had left their places and fallen on the Indians
    • 2018, Shoshana Zuboff, chapter 13, in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism:
      The norm is submission to the supposed iron laws of technological inevitability that brook no impediment.
    • 2019 May 19, Alex McLevy, “The final Game Of Thrones brings a pensive but simple meditation about stories (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club‎[1], archived from the original on 22 May 2019:
      The faith in destiny and moral certainty claimed by would-be liberators brooks no resistance, and to register objections to their devotion is to be seen as the enemy of rightness.
    • 2022 February 25, Thomas L. Friedman, “We Have Never Been Here Before”, in The New York Times‎[2], →ISSN:
      On just the first day of the war, more than 1,300 protesters across Russia, many of them chanting “No to war,” were detained, The Times reported, quoting a rights group. That’s no small number in a country where Putin brooks little dissent.
  2. (transitive, now chiefly Scotland) To enjoy the use of; make use of; profit by; to use, enjoy, possess, or hold.
    Synonyms: apply, employ, utilize
  3. (transitive, obsolete) To earn; deserve.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:deserve
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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From Middle English brook, from Old English brōc (“brook; stream; torrent”), from Proto-West Germanic *brōk (“stream”).

Noun

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brook (plural brooks)

  2. A body of running water smaller than a river; a small stream.
    • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
      empties itself, as doth an inland brook / into the main of waters
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 8:7:
      The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water.
    • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC:
      But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection. ¶ […] The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window at the old mare feeding in the meadow below by the brook, […].
    • 1936, Norman Lindsay, The Flyaway Highway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 53:
      "Most of them don't wash. Those who do usually plunge their head into some brook or rill, if there happens to be one about."
  3. (Sussex, Kent) A water meadow.
  4. (Sussex, Kent, in the plural) Low, marshy ground.
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Common nouns
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Proper nouns
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Translations
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References

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  • “brook”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
  1. ^ “Brook” in John Walker, A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary […] , London: Sold by G. G. J. and J. Robinſon, Paternoſter Row; and T. Cadell, in the Strand, 1791, →OCLC, page 123, column 2.

Anagrams

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Scots

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Etymology

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From Middle English bro(o)ken (“to use, enjoy, digest”), from Old English brūcan (“to use, enjoy”). See also brouk.

Verb

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tae brook

  1. To enjoy; to possess; to have use or owndom of.
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