brook

1 of 2

noun

: creek sense 1
a babbling brook

brook

2 of 2

verb

brooked; brooking; brooks

transitive verb

: to stand for : tolerate
he would brook no interference with his plans

Examples of brook in a Sentence

Noun there are tiny fish and frogs in that brook Verb I will not brook insults from my own employees.
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
Think of that situation as a never-ending babbling brook. Lance Eliot, Forbes, 29 Feb. 2024 The mass-participation ball game involves two teams, whose players are defined by which side of a small brook that bisects the town they were born, aiming to score a goal, which are some three miles apart. Alan Taylor, The Atlantic, 16 Feb. 2024 Especially in the sweltering summer months, the babbling brooks and springs were a cooling reprieve, drawing road-trippers from near and far as the only national park for hundreds of miles. Matt Kirouac, Travel + Leisure, 31 Dec. 2023 But perhaps his most audacious creation is a three-acre lake, big enough to canoe in, which was built by fixing a retaining wall against sloped land fed by two brooks. Curbed, 29 Dec. 2023 When left open, rivers and brooks absorb extra water in their natural flood plains; when encased, the water has nowhere to go but up, often into people’s cellars. Ulrike Lemmin-Woolfrey, Condé Nast Traveler, 30 Nov. 2023 Holt would find a quiet place to sit near a brook and study financial publications. Kathy McCormack, Fortune, 21 Nov. 2023 Across a gurgling brook, up a muddy slope, over mossy tree limbs, through a tangle of brambles and vines, the dogs covered acres of terrain. Bernhard Warner, New York Times, 11 Nov. 2023 Dominique Janee: This small parcel sitting on the fertile floodplain along a brook, was perfect for a medicinal garden. Dominique Janee, Scientific American, 2 Nov. 2023
Verb
Sure, his populist, vaccine-skeptical audience overlaps to some extent with that of DeSantis, and there is some entertainment value to be had in reminding people that the Democrats brook no dissent. Dan McLaughlin, National Review, 18 Jan. 2024 The regime brooked little dissent, harshly cracking down on critics in the media, intimidating political activists, and jailing vocal opposition leaders, especially from the PML-N, on unsubstantiated corruption charges. Aqil Shah, Foreign Affairs, 15 Apr. 2022 The colony’s superintendent at the time was not a man to brook any such insubordination. Adam Goodheart, Smithsonian Magazine, 25 Sep. 2023 In this way, the book’s plot recalls classic tropes of the Cold War: a cruel, power-hungry communist party-state, unwilling to brook any popular challenge to its authority, oppresses its people and provokes heroic resistance. Susan Greenhalgh and Xiying Wang, Foreign Affairs, 11 June 2019 Like parts of the West Bank, Gaza enjoys a degree of autonomy, and since the brief Palestinian civil war of 2007, the territory has been administered internally by the Islamist organization Hamas, which brooks little dissent. Michael Barnett, Foreign Affairs, 14 Apr. 2023 But in the end, the Legend would simply brook no challenge. Kevin Smith, Car and Driver, 24 June 2023 Any of the folks that have brooked him or collaborated with him, they’re morally compromised. Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, 20 Apr. 2023 Stay calm, stay cool, and brook no argument. Amy Dickinson, Detroit Free Press, 5 June 2021

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'brook.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Noun

Middle English, from Old English brōc; akin to Old High German bruoh marshy ground

Verb

Middle English brouken, broken "to have the benefit of, enjoy, employ, use, eat or drink, stomach, tolerate," going back to Old English brūcan "to enjoy the use of, use, employ, partake (of food or drink), possess," going back to Germanic *brūkan-/*brūkjan- (whence also Old Frisian brūka "to make use of, employ," Old Saxon brūkan "to enjoy the use of," Middle Dutch brūken "to use, enjoy," Old High German brūchan "to enjoy the use of," Gothic brūhjan "to use"), going back to dialectal Indo-European *bhruHg- "enjoy, use" whence also Latin fruor, fruī "to enjoy the produce or proceeds of, derive advantage from, be blessed with, derive pleasure from" (see fruit entry 1)

Note: The Indo-European etymon *bhruHg- is attested only in Germanic and Italic, and within Germanic not in the northern branch (Danish bruge "to use," Swedish bruka, etc., are loans from Low German). In Old English brūcan is a Class II strong verb (preterit breac, brucon, participle brocen), and in Old Saxon brūkan, attested only in the infinitive, is probably also strong. In Middle English and the other Germanic languages, however, it is a weak verb, with only traces of possible strong forms. The phonetic outcome displayed by Modern English brook, with [u], is peculiar and cannot directly continue Old English ū. E.J. Dobson hypothesizes that a new Middle English infinitive with ŭ was formed on the analogy of the weak past tense and past participle early enough to undergo open-syllable lengthening—hence brŭken > brọ̄ken > brook, with [u:] later shortened to [u] (see English Pronunciation, 1500-1700, 2. edition, Oxford, 1968, p. 513). Present-day English continues only a small portion of the original meaning of the verb.

First Known Use

Noun

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above

Verb

1530, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of brook was before the 12th century

Dictionary Entries Near brook

Cite this Entry

“Brook.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brook. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

brook

1 of 2 verb
: tolerate sense 1
brooks no interference

brook

2 of 2 noun
: a small stream
Etymology

Verb

Old English brūcan "to use, enjoy"

Noun

Old English brōc "brook, creek"

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