BROODING • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Brooding

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/brˈudɪŋ/ Listen

adjective

brooding adj.

Worried and thinking long and intensely, especially about a particular problem.

Synonyms: broody, contemplative, meditative, musing, pensive, pondering, reflective, ruminative, gloomy, morose.

brooding adj. Good at incubating eggs, especially of a fowl kept for that purpose; as, a brooding hen.

Synonyms: brood, hatching.

noun

brooding n. The process of sitting on eggs so as to hatch them by the warmth of the body; mostly used of birds.

Synonyms: incubation.

verb

Brood v. t.

To sit over, cover, and cherish; as, a hen broods her chickens.

To cherish with care. (R.)

To think anxiously or moodily upon. "You'll sit and brood your sorrows on a throne."

Brood v. i. (past & past part. brooded; pres. part. brooding)

To sit on and cover eggs, as a fowl, for the purpose of warming them and hatching the young; or to sit over and cover young, as a hen her chickens, in order to warm and protect them; hence, to sit quietly, as if brooding. "Birds of calm sir brooding on the charmed wave."

To have the mind dwell continuously or moodily on a subject; to think long and anxiously; to be in a state of gloomy, serious thought; usually followed by over or on; as, to brood over misfortunes. "Brooding on unprofitable gold." "Brooding over all these matters, the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit." "When with downcast eyes we muse and brood."

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Etymology of 'Brooding'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Brooding" Quotes from Famous Books

... Dr. Martineau left Sir Richmond in a chair upon the lawn, brooding darkly—apparently over the crime of the carbuncle. The doctor went to his room, ostensibly to write a couple of letters and put on a dinner jacket, but really to make a few notes of the afternoon's conversation and meditate over his ...

— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... eyes like a man possessed by a devil who will not leave him; and I have always observed, that the devil most obstinate to be expelled is a secret. I knew you were a Corsican. I knew you were gloomy, and always brooding over some old history of the vendetta; and I overlooked that in Italy, because in Italy those things are thought nothing of. But in France they are considered in very bad taste; there are gendarmes who occupy themselves with ...

— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... coming, we are coming! not as comes the tempest's wrath, When the frown of desolation sits brooding o'er its path; But with mercy, such as leaves his holy signet-light upon The air in lambent beauty, when the darkened storm is gone. We will vote for Birney, We will vote for Birney, We're for Morris and for Birney, And for Freedom ...

— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark

... state, East and Tom were one evening sitting in their study. They had done their work for first lesson, and Tom was in a brown study, brooding, like a young William Tell, upon the wrongs of fags in general, and his ...

— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... in the deputy's language, the King, no longer smiling, threw himself violently upon his chair of state, where he remained, brooding with a gloomy countenance upon the language which had been addressed to him. It was evident, said an eye-witness, that he was deeply offended. He changed color frequently, so that all present "could remark, from the working ...

— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

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