Etymologically
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brook

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Pronunciation

brook1 small stream

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English brok,[2][3] inherited from Old English brōc (“a flowing stream, torrent”),[4][5][2][6][7] inherited from Proto-Germanic *brōkaz.[5][2][8][9] In the other Germanic languages the cognates mean "marsh, bog": broec, broek, brōk, bruoh and Bruch.[4][5][10][11][9] The origin is obscure or unknown;[5][10][12][13][8] Kroonen thinks it probably a derivative of the adjective that gave brackish,[9] while Klein, Weekley and Merriam-Webster connect it with break, as water that breaks out of the ground,[11][14][3] and Partridge explains the marsh sense from a breach in a river bank.[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

A stream, originally a torrent or strong flowing stream: Old English, in King Alfred's translation of Boethius;[4][2] Barnhart dates the Old English word to about 847 and the Middle English form brok to before 1200, in Layamon.[2][16]

Semantic evolution

The sense weakened from a torrent to a small stream or rivulet.[4][12] In early Middle English it was also used of any copious flow, such as a stream of blood (about 1225),[4] and about 1400 of the flow of the sea.[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a running water, less than a river".[17] In Sussex and Kent it meant a water meadow, and in the plural low, marshy ground.[5] In the United States it is the usual word for a stream chiefly in New England and the north-east, where it occurs in many stream names.[3] Dialect compounds include brooklime, a kind of speedwell, whose second element is not lime but the Old English plant name hleomoc.[14][18]

Timeline

  • c847 – Old English brōc.[2]
  • Old English – a strong flowing stream, in Alfred's Boethius.[4]
  • before 1200 – brok, in Layamon.[2]
  • c1225 – a copious flow, a torrent of blood (obsolete).[4]
  • c1400 – the flow of the sea (obsolete).[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A small natural stream; a creek or rivulet: A brook runs along the bottom of the garden.
  2. (US) A brook trout.

Word family

  • brooklet
  • brooklime
  • brook trout

brook2 to tolerate

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English brouken (“to use, enjoy, digest”),[3][6][2] inherited from Old English brūcan (“to use, enjoy the use of, possess; eat”),[4][5][2][6][12] a strong verb,[4][10] inherited from Proto-Germanic *brūkaną.[5][19][8] It is cognate with brūkan, brūka, bruiken and gebruiken (“to use”), brūhhan, brauchen (“to use, need”) and 𐌱𐍂𐌿𐌺𐌾𐌰𐌽 (brukjan, “to use”).[4][5][2][12][19] Etymonline, Merriam-Webster and Klein relate it to fruor (“to enjoy”), the source of fruit;[5][3][11][12] Orel instead compares braukti (“to smear”).[19]

Earliest recorded meaning

To use, enjoy, possess: Old English, in The Wanderer,[4] the verb being recorded from about 725, in Beowulf, according to Barnhart.[2] The Middle English form bruken dates from before 1200, in Layamon.[2]

Semantic evolution

Applied to food, "to use" meant "to eat", and then "to digest, keep on the stomach" (Old English to 1598).[4][5] From that the verb came to mean "to put up with, endure", first in Palsgrave (1530), a figurative use of "to stomach";[4][2][13][14] it is now used only in negative constructions such as brook no delay.[4][3][5] The old senses fell out of use,[5] though "to enjoy, possess" survived in Scots, as in the wish weel bruik to someone wearing new clothes, and in some Scottish legal phrases.[18][4] Trench quoted Spenser's well did brooke her noble deeds to show the older meaning of using or enjoying.[20] The phrase to brook a name, to live up to it, was used from 1587 to 1655.[4]

Timeline

  • c725 – Old English brūcan, in Beowulf.[2]
  • Old English – to use, enjoy, possess.[4]
  • Old English – to eat; later to digest (until 1598).[4]
  • before 1200 – bruken, in Layamon.[2]
  • 1530 – to tolerate, put up with.[4][2]
  • 1587–1655 – to brook a name, to live up to it.[4]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. (formal) To tolerate or put up with; usually in negative constructions: The new manager would brook no argument.
  2. (archaic, Scotland) To enjoy the use of; to possess.

Word family

  • brookable

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  9. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  10. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  12. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  16. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  18. ^ 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)
  19. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  20. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker