brook
pronunciation
How to pronounce brook in British English:
UK [brʊk]
How to pronounce brook in American English:
US [brʊk]
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- Noun:
- a natural stream of water smaller than a river (and often a tributary of a river)
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- Verb:
- put up with something or somebody unpleasant
Word Origin
- brook
- brook: [OE] There are two distinct words brook in English. The one meaning ‘stream’ is comparatively isolated; it apparently has relatives in other Germanic languages (such as German bruch), but they mean ‘swamp’, and there the story ends. The now rather archaic verb brook, however, meaning ‘stand for, tolerate’, can be traced right back to an Indo-European base *bhrug-, from which English also gets fruit and frugal.Its Germanic descendant was *brūk- ‘use’, which has given rise to a range of current verbs in the Germanic languages, including German brauchen ‘use, need’. The Old English version was brūcan, which also meant ‘use’. A particular application to food (‘use’ in the sense ‘eat’, and later ‘be able to digest’) started to develop in the late Old English period, and by the 16th century this had come to be used more generally (rather like stomach) for ‘tolerate’.=> frugal, fruit
- brook (n.)
- "small stream," Old English broc "flowing stream, torrest," of obscure origin, probably from Proto-Germanic *broka- which yielded words in German (Bruch) and Dutch (broek) that have a sense of "marsh." In Sussex and Kent, it means "water-meadow," and in plural, "low, marshy ground."
- brook (v.)
- "to endure," Old English brucan "use, enjoy, possess; eat; cohabit with," from Proto-Germanic *bruk- "to make use of, enjoy" (cognates: Old Saxon brukan, Old Frisian bruka, Old High German bruhhan, German brauchen "to use," Gothic brukjan), from PIE root *bhrug- "to make use of, have enjoyment of" (cognates: Latin fructus). Sense of "use" applied to food led to "be able to digest," and by 16c. to "tolerate."
Example
- 1. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night .
- 2. Once I spoke of the sea to a brook , and the brook thought me but an imaginative exaggerator ;
- 3. Mcdonald 's headquarters is in oak brook , illinois .
- 4. Children execute flips ; monks meditate in the foreground ; women wash clothes in a brook ; and other women pluck on ancient chinese string instruments .
- 5. The purists will brook no such change , insisting republicans must stay true to their small government , socially conservative message .