Etymologically
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brow

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English browe, plural browes,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English brū, plural brūa,[2][5][6] from Proto-Germanic *brūwō,[1][7] from Proto-Indo-European *h₃bʰrúHs (“brow”).[1][2][8][9] It is cognate with Old Norse brún (“eyebrow”),[2][10][11][7] Ancient Greek ὀφρύς (ophrús, “eyebrow”),[5][10][9][1] Sanskrit भ्रू (bhrū́, “eyebrow”),[5][10][1] Lithuanian bruvìs (“brow”)[2][9][1] and Old Irish brú (“edge”).[2][11] The -n- of the Old Norse word and of German Braune comes from a genitive plural inflection.[2][5] The OED notes that Old Norse brú (“bridge”) was perhaps the same word with a transferred sense.[5] In the other Germanic languages the word was replaced by forms of a different stem, as in Old High German brāwa (“eyelashes”), the source of German Braue (“eyebrow”), and Old English had this stem too, as West Saxon bræw,[5][3][2] which gave the usual Middle English word for "eyebrow", brew.[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Eyelash: this was the normal sense in Old English, recorded in Riddle 40; the eyebrows were distinguished as oferbrūa, "over-eyelashes".[5][2][6] Bosworth–Toller glosses the word both "eyebrow" and "eyelash", and it renders Latin cilium and supercilium in the glossaries.[6]

Semantic evolution

The OED and Etymonline take "eyebrow" as the original sense, which the related words in other languages show; it was extended early to the hair on the eyelids, the eyelashes.[5][2][12] From the lashes the name passed step by step to the eyelids, the eyebrows, the prominences of the forehead and finally the whole forehead.[5] Barnhart puts the eyelid sense and the movement of the brows that shows feeling among the earliest Middle English uses, before 1200, in Layamon.[3] The OED records "eyelid" from about 1200 to 1500, and the arch of hair over the eye, the modern main sense, from 1398 in Trevisa;[5] Ayto says that the "eyebrow" sense resurfaced or was recreated in English in the 11th century.[12] The brow of a hill, the top of a slope, is recorded from about 1400.[2][9] Shakespeare used it for the whole forehead (1593), as the seat of facial expression (1594) and for countenance or aspect (1598);[5] Weekley calls "forehead" a poetic sense of the 16th century.[13] Johnson (1755) gave four senses: the arch of hair over the eye, the forehead, the general air of the face, and the edge of a high place.[14] From 1642 to 1720 brow could also mean impudence, as cheek does now.[5] The compounds highbrow and lowbrow led to brow alone for a level of intellectual interest in 1923.[5] In Scotland and northern England broo or brow is a hill or steep slope; a Cumbrian complained that it is hard work cycling where there are so many broos.[15][16]

Timeline

  • Old English – eyelash; eyebrows are oferbrūa.[5][6]
  • probably before 1200 – bruwen, in Layamon, of the eyelids and of the moving brows.[3]
  • c. 1200 – the eyelid (obsolete by 1500).[5]
  • c. 1300 – broue, the arch of hair over the eye.[2]
  • 1398 – eyebrow, in Trevisa.[5]
  • c. 1400 – the slope or top of a steep place.[2]
  • 1593 – the forehead, in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis.[5]
  • 1598 – countenance, aspect.[5]
  • 1637 – verb, to form the brow of, in Milton's Comus.[5]
  • 1642 – impudence (obsolete by 1720).[5]
  • 1923 – level of intellectual interest, after highbrow.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The forehead: He wiped the sweat from his brow.[16][10]
  2. An eyebrow, or the ridge above the eye on which it grows: She raised her brows in surprise.[16][10]
  3. The face as showing feeling; countenance: a furrowed brow.[16][5]
  4. The projecting top or edge of a hill or steep place: the brow of the hill.[16][10]
  5. (Northern English and Scots dialect) A hill or steep slope, especially on a road.[16][15]

Verb

  1. (rare) To form the edge of; to be on the brow of.[10][17][5]

Word family

  • browbeat
  • beetle-browed
  • eyebrow
  • highbrow
  • lowbrow
  • middlebrow
  • brae

Usage notes

In nautical use brow is also a gangway from a ship to the shore, recorded from 1867 in Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book; this is apparently from Danish or Swedish bru, "bridge", and is not the same word.[5][17][10] Weekley found it in the official account of the Zeebrugge raid of 1918, where some newspapers printed prow instead.[13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ 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 r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  7. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  12. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ 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)
  16. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  17. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press