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Etymology and origin of the English word broil

Pronunciation

broil1 to cook by direct heat

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1350
Borrowed from
Anglo-Norman bruiller via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin ustulō

Etymology

The word for cooking by direct heat is inherited from Middle English broilen, earlier brulen,[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman bruiller (“to burn, broil”),[4] from Old French bruller (“to burn, roast”), earlier brusler, modern French brûler.[5][3][6][7] Anglo-Norman bruler is recorded from the first third of the 12th century, already with the sense "grill".[8] The OED calls the English word's history uncertain: brule looks like the French verb, while bruyle, broyle may have a separate source in Old French bruillir, used of burning in the sun.[9] Collins and Partridge also start from that verb.[10][11] Barnhart instead explains the vowel of broillen as a regular change, like that of fullen to foilen (foil) and reculen to recoilen (recoil),[3] and Weekley suspects the influence of boil.[12] The French verb is of disputed origin.[5][13] Barnhart, the American Heritage Dictionary and Gamillscheg, cited by Etymonline, derive it from Latin ustulō (“to scorch, singe”),[3][7][5] from ūrō (“to burn”), which Barnhart traces to Proto-Indo-European *eus-,[3] altered under the influence of Germanic verbs for burning such as Old High German brinnan.[3][5] Hoad and the Shorter Oxford also combine the Latin verb with the Germanic base of burn.[14][6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged suggests a wrong division of ambustulō instead,[15] and Random House a conflation of usler, from the Latin verb, with bruir (“to burn”), from Frankish *brōjan.[16] Etymonline also mentions Vulgar Latin *brodum (“broth”), related to brew,[5] and Klein derives this verb from the same source as the quarrelling broil2.[17]

Earliest recorded meaning

To burn or scorch: about 1350, as brulen, in a Psalter, rendering a form of ūrō.[2][3] The OED's first example of this sense is from about 1375.[9]

Semantic evolution

The cooking sense appears within a generation of the first record: a recipe of 1381 has food ybrulyd upon a gredern, on a gridiron,[2] and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales has He koude rooste and sethe and broille and frye.[2][3] The plain sense "burn, char" was obsolete after 1568.[9] From heat on food the verb spread to heat on people and to feelings: to become heated with excitement or anger from 1561,[9] of passion, to glow, from 1600,[9] and to be very hot from the early 17th century.[9][5] Johnson (1755) records both the cook's sense, laying on the coals, and To be in the heat.[18] A noun meaning a great heat followed in the 16th century,[9][15] and one meaning broiled meat in 1822.[9][5] In the dialects of Cumberland, Yorkshire and Worcestershire the verb meant to throw into a state of heat, and in Scotland, Westmorland and Lincolnshire to sweat violently, as in I'm all ov a broil.[19]

Timeline

  • c. 1350 – brulen, to burn, scorch (obsolete by 1568).[2][3]
  • 1381 – to cook on a gridiron.[2] The OED's first example is Chaucer's, about 1386.[9]
  • 1561 – intransitive, to grow hot, especially with excitement or anger.[9]
  • 1583 – noun, a great heat.[9] Merriam-Webster Unabridged has 1563.[15]
  • 1600 – of passion, to burn or glow.[9]
  • 1623 – to be very hot.[9] Etymonline has 1610.[5]
  • 1635 – to scorch, to make very hot.[9]
  • 1822 – noun, broiled meat, a grilled chop or steak.[9][5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (chiefly US and Canadian) To cook meat, fish and the like by direct heat, on a grill or under a flame, or to be cooked in this way: We broiled the trout over charcoal.[10][15][9]
  2. To make or become very hot: The tourists broiled on the open deck.[10][15][9]
  3. To be furious.[10]
  4. (obsolete, c. 1375–1568) To burn or char.[9][15][6]

Noun

  1. The process of broiling; great heat.[10][15][9]
  2. Something broiled, such as a steak or chop.[10][15][9]

Word family

  • broiler
  • broilingly
  • charbroil
  • pan-broil
  • London broil

broil2 quarrel, turmoil

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1401 Wright's Political Poems and Songs
Borrowed from
Anglo-Norman broiller via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Old French breu

Etymology

The word for a quarrel or turmoil is inherited from Middle English broilen, borrowed from Anglo-Norman broiller (“to mix up, confuse”),[7][3][5][6][4][14][16] from Old French brooillier (“to mix, mingle”), modern French brouiller.[5][6][14] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from the 13th century for jumbling together.[8] Most recent dictionaries trace the French verb to breu (“broth, brew”),[7][3][15][6][10] perhaps through a verb Vulgar Latin *brodiculō,[14][16] and that noun to a Germanic source, Frankish according to Barnhart and Etymonline,[3][5] compare Old High German brod (“broth”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhreu- (“to boil, bubble, effervesce”).[5] The OED calls the further origin uncertain.[9] It reports that Diez and Littré equated the verb with Old Occitan bruelhar and Catalan brollar (“to bud, rise up”), and connected it with breuil (“enclosed brushwood”), though most etymologists doubt this;[9] Weekley still favoured that connection.[12] Klein sees a blend of the word for broth with fooillier (“to rummage”),[17] and Partridge starts from brou (“mud, mire”).[11] The French verb is the base of embrouiller, the source of embroil,[5][9][11] and it corresponds to Italian brogliare (“to stir, disorder”), the verb behind imbroglio.[9][5][11] The noun, from 1525, comes from the English verb.[6][5][14][13] The OED says "apparently", comparing broglio (“confusion”).[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To mix up or present in disorder: 1401, in a text printed in Wright's Political Poems and Songs.[9] The Middle English Dictionary and Barnhart date the sense to 1402, the former with Thou broylist up many lesynges, of mixing up lies.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English Dictionary has the sense "to quarrel, brawl" before 1456, in Lydgate's To brawle and broyle,[2] long before the OED's first example of about 1567.[9] From 1548 it could also mean to agitate or discompose someone,[9] as in Thomas More's broiled with melancholy.[15] The noun, a confused disturbance or quarrel, appears in 1525 in Lord Berners's translation of Froissart,[9][15] and with the phrases to set in broil and on a broil in the late 16th century.[9] Johnson (1755) defines it as a tumult or quarrel and quotes Macbeth: Say to the king thy knowledge of the broil.[18] The verb has since faded, and the American Heritage Dictionary calls it obsolete,[7] though the noun survives.[15][9]

Timeline

  • 1401 – to mix or mingle confusedly (obsolete by 1631).[9] Barnhart has 1402.[3]
  • before 1456 – to quarrel, brawl.[2] The OED's first example is from about 1567.[9]
  • 1525 – noun, a confused disturbance, a quarrel.[9][15][20]
  • 1548 – to throw into confusion, agitate (obsolete by 1642).[9]
  • 1577 – to set in broil, on a broil (obsolete by 1603).[9]
  • 1857 – to put into a broil, to embroil.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A noisy quarrel or brawl; a confused disturbance, tumult or turmoil: a broil in the harbour tavern.[15][9][6]

Verb

  1. To engage in a broil; to brawl or quarrel.[15][9][6]
  2. To entangle in a quarrel; to embroil.[15][9]
  3. (obsolete, 1401–1631) To mix confusedly.[9][15][6]
  4. (obsolete, 1548–1642) To involve in confusion; to agitate.[9][15]

Usage notes

In the cooking sense broil is chiefly American and Canadian; the usual word elsewhere is grill.[10] In Devon and Cornwall broil was also a miners' word for surface earth that shows a vein of metal, and in Cornwall a word for an eddy.[19]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  11. ^ a b c d Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  12. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  16. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  17. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  18. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  19. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  20. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Broil.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/broil. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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