1
: moodily or sullenly thoughtful or serious
a brooding genius
a brooding, embittered man
2
: darkly somber
a brooding landscape
a quiet, brooding atmosphere
… brooding, violent images reminiscent of … film noir …—
Tracy Hopkins
Tracy Hopkins
broodingly
adverb
a broodingly handsome actor
Gardner gazes broodingly at the camera …
—Kathleen Murphy
Kathleen Murphy
Examples of brooding in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
This isn't the one-note brooding, mysterious kind of troubled hero we're used to seeing.
—Kathleen Newman-Bremang, Refinery29, 27 Jan. 2026
Feldman had been asked whether his corpus of work, with its brooding slowness and trembling softness, had something to do with Jewish mourning in the wake of the Holocaust.
—Alex Ross, New Yorker, 26 Jan. 2026
Basically, think of the Vogue Book Club group chat like an AP Lit discussion session, only with no grades and no final exam and a lot more emphasis on why, exactly, a brooding man of the Yorkshire moors has remained so consistently attractive across nearly two centuries.
—Emma Specter, Vogue, 15 Jan. 2026
The brooding romanticism of the era is taking form as antique textiles and Victorian symbols meant to feel over-the-top.
—Daisy Maldonado, InStyle, 14 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for brooding
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Kathleen Newman-Bremang, Refinery29, 27 Jan. 2026
Feldman had been asked whether his corpus of work, with its brooding slowness and trembling softness, had something to do with Jewish mourning in the wake of the Holocaust.
—Alex Ross, New Yorker, 26 Jan. 2026
Basically, think of the Vogue Book Club group chat like an AP Lit discussion session, only with no grades and no final exam and a lot more emphasis on why, exactly, a brooding man of the Yorkshire moors has remained so consistently attractive across nearly two centuries.
—Emma Specter, Vogue, 15 Jan. 2026
The brooding romanticism of the era is taking form as antique textiles and Victorian symbols meant to feel over-the-top.
—Daisy Maldonado, InStyle, 14 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for brooding
Cite this Entry
“Brooding.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brooding. Accessed 2 Feb. 2026.
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