brood
noun · adjective · verb
Simple meaning
The young of an animal cared for at one time.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
broodIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbɹud
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The young of an animal cared for at one time
The young of certain animals, especially a group of young birds or fowl hatched at one time by the same mother.
uncountable
The young of any egg-laying creature, especially if produced at the same time.
countableuncountable
A large number or crowd of people, animals, or objects.
countableuncountable
The eggs and larvae of social insects such as bees, ants and some wasps, especially when gathered together in special brood chambers or combs within the colony.
That which is bred or produced; breed; species.
adjective
of animals
Kept or reared for breeding.
verb
transitive
To keep an egg warm to make it hatch.
intransitive
To be bred.
transitive
To protect (something that is gradually maturing); to foster.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The young of an animal cared for at one time
Used this way, brood is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use brood
- “The terrible vision brooded over her all day long.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Sitting on eggs so as to hatch them by the warmth of the body.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A bitch used for breeding.
A domestic hen ready to brood.
Severe respiratory disease of birds that takes the form of an acute rapidly fatal pneumonia in young chickens and turkeys.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A domestic hen ready to brood.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.