broth

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English broth,^[2][3] inherited from Old English broþ,^[4][5][6][7] from Proto-Germanic *bruþą,^[6][8][9] a derivative of the base of brew, brēowan.^{[8][7][10][11]} It is cognate with Old High German brod,^[4][8][5] Old Saxon broth^[5][9] and Old Norse broð.^[4][6][7] Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *bhreu- (“to boil, bubble, effervesce, burn”),^[6][12][13] and Klein and Merriam-Webster compare Latin dēfrutum (“must boiled down”) and Old Irish bruth (“heat”).^[14][3] The Germanic word was borrowed into the Romance languages: Medieval Latin brodum gave Italian brodo and Old French breu,^[8][4][6] and Vulgar Latin *brodo gave broez, the source of brose, a Scottish porridge.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The liquid in which meat or other food has been boiled: Old English, in the Colloquium Monasticum, which says that the monks may have fætt broþ, rich broth.^[4][5] Barnhart dates the word to before 1000.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The core meaning has stayed the same since Old English.^[4][13] Ayto notes that the idea of heating, implied by the root, survived into the early modern period in compounds such as snow-broth, melted snow, from the end of the 16th century;^[13] the OED records broth loosely for various boiled or brewed liquors, and for brine, from before 1475 to 1774.^[4] From about 1515 it was used figuratively,^[4] and in bacteriology from 1885 for a liquid culture medium.^[4][3] The Irish phrase a broth of a boy, a fine lively fellow,^[4][11] was explained by Weekley, after Joyce, as "the essence of manhood, as broth is the essence of meat";^[15] Etymonline mentions the alternative view, reported by Farmer, that it comes from an Irish word for passion.^[6] In Scotland and much of northern and midland England broth was treated as a plural, as in "a few broth".^[16]

Timeline

• before 1000 – Old English broþ, the liquid in which food is boiled.^[4][8]
• before 1475 – various boiled or brewed liquors (obsolete by 1774).^[4]
• c. 1515 – figurative uses.^[4]
• 1645 – to make white broth of, to boil to death.^[4]
• 1885 – bacteriology, a liquid culture medium.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The liquid in which meat, fish, grain or vegetables have been cooked; stock: chicken broth.^[17][3][4]
2. A thin soup made from such a liquid, often with vegetables.^[17][4]
3. (bacteriology) A liquid culture medium.^[3][4]
4. a broth of a boy (Irish): a fine, spirited fellow.^[4][11]

Word family

• brothy
• hellbroth
• snow-broth
• Scotch broth

Related words

• brewis
• brose
• brew
• bread
• brood
• fervent
• imbrue

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
3. ^ a b c d e 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ 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
14. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ 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)
17. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins