broom

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English brom, also brome and brume,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English brōm (“broom (the shrub)”),^[5][6][7][8] from Proto-Germanic *brēmaz (“thorny bush”).^[7][9][6] It is cognate with Old High German brāmo (“bramble”) and brāma,^[5][9][10] Middle High German brāme,^[5][3] Middle Low German brām,^[11][10] Middle Dutch brāme,^[10][9] Dutch braam (“blackberry, bramble”)^[7][6][9] and the first part of German Brombeere (“blackberry”).^[6][9][11] According to the OED the earliest sense of the Germanic stem seems to be "thorny shrub", which gave "bramble" and "furze, gorse", and through confusion with the latter "broom", apparently the only sense in English.^[5] Ayto notes that the name covers a wide range of plants in the Germanic languages, Old Saxon hiopbrāmio being a hawthorn bush.^[12][13] English bramble comes from the same source.^[12][11][5] Etymonline and Köbler trace the stem to Proto-Indo-European *bʰerem- (“to project; a point”),^[6][14] and Barnhart to Proto-Indo-European *bʰrēmos;^[9] Klein relates it to bore, "to pierce", and to brim.^[3][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The shrub: Barnhart dates it to about 700, in Old English glossaries, where brōm glosses Latin genista.^[9][8][2] The OED's first quotation is from the Old English Leechdoms, in a remedy that uses the ashes of broom.^[5][8]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the yellow-flowered shrub, whose long slender branches were used for medicine and fuel.^[6][5] In Middle English brome was also the material itself, for besoms, thatch and fuel: about 1400 a noise came "like a besom made of brome".^[2] From this the name passed to the sweeping implement, at first one made of broom twigs tied to a handle.^[12][16][11] Barnhart and Etymonline date this sense to 1346 and the mid-14th century,^[9][6] while the OED's first quotation is from Caxton's Reynard the Fox (1481) and Ayto places it in the 15th century.^[5][12] The broom gradually replaced the older word besom, which is now restricted to a broom of twigs.^[16] Johnson (1755) gave both senses, explaining the second as a besom "so called from the matter of which it is made".^[17] Later brooms were made of broomcorn, bristles or fibres.^[15][18] The proverb a new broom sweeps clean is recorded by the 1660s,^[6] and a new broom is a newly appointed official eager to make changes.^[18] The verb, to sweep with a broom, is recorded from 1838 in the OED,^[5][9] from 1829 in Merriam-Webster.^[15] In slang broom has meant pubic hair and a cigar,^[19] and in British Black slang a shotgun, because it "sweeps the room clean".^[19]

Timeline

• c. 700 – Old English brōm, the shrub, in glossaries.^[9]
• 1346 – a sweeping implement made of broom twigs.^[9][6]
• 1481 – a long-handled brush for sweeping, in Caxton.^[5]
• 1587 – figurative and transferred uses.^[5]
• 1600 – a horse's sweeping tail.^[5]
• 1613 – broomstaff, in Shakespeare's Henry VIII.^[9]
• 1660s – a new broom sweeps clean.^[6]
• 1683 – broomstick.^[9]
• 1838 – verb, to sweep with a broom.^[5][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A long-handled brush for sweeping, with bristles, fibres or twigs bound together or set in a head: She swept the porch with a stiff broom.^[18][15][5]
2. Any of several leguminous shrubs of the genera Cytisus and Genista, with long slender branches and usually yellow flowers.^[18][15][5]
3. Any of various similar plants, such as Spartium, or plants named after the broom.^[18][5]
4. new broom: a newly appointed official or manager eager to make changes.^[18][6]

Verb

1. To sweep with a broom: He broomed the dust off the step.^[15][5]
2. To finish or apply something (concrete, a filler) with a broom.^[15]

Word family

• broomy
• broomstick
• whiskbroom
• broomball
• broomcorn
• broomrape
• push broom

Related words

• bramble
• brim
• besom
• brush

Usage notes

Both /bruːm/ and /brʊm/ are heard in Britain and America.^[4] Dictionary.com reports the vowel of book especially in New England, eastern Virginia and the coastal South, and in the eastern counties of England.^[4] In 19th-century Suffolk, Sussex and Wiltshire it was thought unlucky to bring broom flowers into the house or to sweep with broom twigs in May,^[20][6] and buying a broom or brush in May was also thought unlucky.^[20]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
14. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
15. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
16. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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 c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
19. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
20. ^ a b Simpson, Jacqueline; Roud, Steve (2000), A Dictionary of English Folklore, Oxford: Oxford University Press