Etymologically
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browse

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Pronunciation

  • /bɹaʊz/, /bɹæʊz/[1]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Anglo-Norman brouter and Middle French brouster (“to crop and eat young shoots and leaves”), recorded in Old French as broster from the second half of the 12th century,[2][3][4][5][6] from Old French brost (“bud, young shoot”).[2][3][7][6][5] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from 1312–13, meaning to nibble.[8] The English forms lack the -t- of the French verb: the OED puts this down to the Anglo-Norman noun brouz, also brouce, scrub or undergrowth,[2][8] and Merriam-Webster and Weekley to French plural forms such as brouts and brouz;[9][10] Etymonline suggests that the -t was taken for a past participle ending,[3] and Hoad calls the loss hard to explain.[11] The French noun is probably of Germanic origin,[2][7][11][5] related to Old Saxon brustian (“to bud, sprout”),[2][9][12][13] and Barnhart compares Middle High German broz (“bud”).[4] Etymonline and Klein trace it to Proto-Indo-European *bhreus- (“to swell, sprout”), the root of breast.[3][14][9][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of cattle, deer or goats, to crop and eat the young shoots, leaves and twigs of shrubs and trees: 1440, in a record of visitations of religious houses.[2] Etymonline dates the verb to the mid 15th century.[3] The noun, young shoots and twigs, follows in about 1523, in Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry.[2][9]

Semantic evolution

The noun first meant the shoots and twigs themselves and then fodder of that kind (1552);[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as branches or shrubs fit for goats and other animals to eat.[15] The verb was also used intransitively (1542) and of letting animals feed in this way (1675).[2] Ayto suggests that the verb first meant to feed on such shoots.[12] In southern and Midland English dialects browse was brushwood or hedge-clippings, and to browse was to trim hedges.[16][2] From 1803, chiefly in American regional speech, the verb meant to stroll or idle about,[2] a sense Green's dictionary records in Australian and American slang from 1884.[17] The figurative sense, to look through books in a library or bookshop at leisure, is recorded from 1818;[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1870s, in American English, and Ayto to the 19th century.[3][12] It was later applied to glancing through a book or newspaper (1895) and to looking over goods in a shop (1903).[2] In 1962 the verb was first used of looking through information on a computer, and it came to mean viewing websites with a browser.[2]

Timeline

  • 1440 – verb, of animals, to crop and eat shoots and leaves.[2]
  • c. 1523 – noun, young shoots and twigs.[2][9]
  • 1542 – intransitive, to feed on shoots and leaves.[2]
  • 1552 – noun, fodder of shoots and twigs.[2]
  • 1675 – to feed animals on shoots and twigs.[2]
  • 1803 – to stroll or idle about (chiefly US regional).[2]
  • 1818 – to look through books at leisure.[2]
  • 1866 – noun, an act of browsing.[2]
  • 1903 – to look over the goods in a shop.[2]
  • 1962 – to look through information on a computer.[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To look through books, goods for sale or the like in a casual, leisurely way: We browsed in the bookshop for an hour.[18][9][2]
  2. (computing) To look at information on a computer or on the Internet, especially with a browser.[18][2]
  3. Of deer, goats and other animals, to feed on the leaves, shoots and twigs of shrubs and trees.[18][9][2]
  4. (chiefly US regional) To stroll or wander about idly.[2][17]

Noun

  1. An act of browsing: a quick browse through the catalogue.[18][2]
  2. Young shoots, twigs and leaves eaten by animals; vegetation fit for browsing.[18][9][2]

Word family

  • browser
  • browsable
  • overbrowse
  • nonbrowsing

Usage notes

In lead smelting, browse is also partly smelted ore, or a mixture of it with fuel, recorded from about 1794; the OED calls its origin uncertain, perhaps an alteration of bouse influenced by the browse of shoots and twigs, and the Shorter Oxford calls it of unknown origin.[2][6]

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 q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  11. ^ a b 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. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  14. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  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 Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  18. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins