5 May 2014

brood

[brood]

noun

1. a number of young produced or hatched at one time; a family of offspring or young.
2. a breed, species, group, or kind: The museum exhibited a brood of monumental sculptures.
verb (used with object)
3. to sit upon (eggs) to hatch, as a bird; incubate.
4. (of a bird) to warm, protect, or cover (young) with the wings or body.
5. to think or worry persistently or moodily about; ponder: He brooded the problem.
verb (used without object)
6. to sit upon eggs to be hatched, as a bird.
7. to dwell on a subject or to meditate with morbid persistence (usually followed by over or on ).
adjective
8. kept for breeding: a brood hen.
Verb phrases
9. brood above / over, to cover, loom, or seem to fill the atmosphere or scene: The haunted house on the hill brooded above the village.
Origin:
before 1000; Middle English; Old English brōd; cognate with Dutch broed, German Brut. See breed

Related forms
brood·less, adjective
un·brood·ed, adjective

Can be confused: brewed, brood (see synonym study at the current entry).

Synonyms
1. Brood, litter refer to young creatures. Brood is especially applied to the young of fowls and birds hatched from eggs at one time and raised under their mother’s care: a brood of young turkeys. Litter is applied to a group of young animals brought forth at a birth: a litter of kittens or pups. 2. line, stock, strain.

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Today’s aphorism

What is success? It’s being able to go to bed at night with your soul at peace.

– Paulo Coelho

On this day

5 May – Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for 5th of May), celebrates Mexican heritage and pride. It originated as a celebration of freedom for Mexicans following the victory by Mexican forces over the French at the Battle of Puebla on 5 May 1862.

5 May 1821 – death of Napoleon Bonaparte, French Emperor

5 May 1970 – University of New Mexico is the scene of protests against the Vietnam War, US attacks on Cambodia and the Kent State University massacre (see 4 May 1970), the National Guard and police are called in. The National Guard fixed bayonets and attacked the protestors, resulting in eleven protestors and journalists being bayonetted.