See Also: brood(medicine)
brood(1)(dictionary)
brood(2)(dictionary)
brood capsules(medicine)
brood cell(medicine)
brood 1, verb(dictionary)
brood 2, noun(dictionary)
brood mare(dictionary)

brood(1) (iou)



brood noun. [bru:d]
[Old English brod, corresp. to Middle Dutch broet (Dutch broed), Old High German bruot (German Brut), from Germanic, from base meaning 'warm, heat'.]
Progeny or offspring of animals that lay eggs; a family of young from one hatching; spec. (a) bee or wasp larvae; (b) the spat of oysters in its second year. OE.
Bible (AV): Luke 13:34 As a henne doeth gather her brood vnder her wings.
b. Of human beings: a family, children. Now derog. or joc. ME.
Shakespeare Tempest She will become thy bed..And bring thee forth brave brood.
c. fig. The products or results of circumstances, actions, etc. L16.
Milton The brood of Folly without father bred. George Eliot A brood of guilty wishes.
The fostering of the foetus in egg or womb; hatching, breeding. arch. exc. in comb. below. ME.
sit on brood sit as a hen on her eggs, sit brooding (cf. ABROOD).
b. Parentage, descent. ME-L16.
Spenser The virgin borne of heauenly brood.
A race, a kind; a group of men, things, etc., having common qualities. Usu. derog. LME.
Addison Its tainted air and all its broods of poisons. E. A. Freeman A brood of petty despots.
A state or period of contemplative brooding. L19.
W. Golding I drifted off into a dreary brood.
Comb.: brood cell, brood comb a cell in, the part of, a comb used for the rearing of bee larvae; brood-hen, brood mare, etc.: kept for breeding; brood patch a denuded area of a bird's ventral surface, facilitating the transfer of heat from the parent to the egg(s); brood pouch a saclike structure for the protection of developing eggs or young, found in various vertebrate and invertebrate animals; brood queen = QUEEN noun 6.