brook
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /bɹʊk/
enpr: brŏŏk
text: Audio (Southern England)
ipa: /bɹʉk/
ipa: /bɹuːk/
rhymes: -ʊk
Forms: form: brooks
form: brooking
form: brooked
form: brooked
Etymology: From Middle English brouken (“to use, enjoy”), from Old English brūcan (“to enjoy, brook, use, possess, partake of, spend”), from Proto-West Germanic *brūkan, from Proto-Germanic *brūkaną (“to enjoy, use”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰruHg- (“to enjoy”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian bruke (“to need”), Dutch bruiken (“to use”), German Low German bruken (“to need”), German brauchen (“to need”), Swedish bruka (“to use”), Icelandic brúka (“to use”).
Senses: examples: text: brook no refusal
text: I will not brook any disobedience.
text: I will brook no impertinence.
text: how shall I brook to be the first cause of difference between a father and son, to whom the averted look and the harsh word have been hitherto unknown?
ref: 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter II, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 22:
text: But Sophia's mother was not the woman to brook defiance. After a few moments' vain remonstrance her husband complied. His manner and appearance were suggestive of a satiated sea-lion.
ref: 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 6, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
text: After delivering the reply he ordered the annalists, who have charge of the knots, to take note of it and include it in their tradition. By now the Spaniards, who were unable to brook the length of the discourse, had left their places and fallen on the Indians
ref: 1966, Garcilaso de la Vega, H. V. Livermore, Karen Spalding, Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru (Abridged), Hackett Publishing, →ISBN, page 104:
text: The norm is submission to the supposed iron laws of technological inevitability that brook no impediment.
ref: 2018, Shoshana Zuboff, chapter 13, in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism:
text: The faith in destiny and moral certainty claimed by would-be liberators brooks no resistance, and to register objections to their devotion is to be seen as the enemy of rightness.
ref: 2019 May 19, Alex McLevy, “The final Game Of Thrones brings a pensive but simple meditation about stories (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 22 May 2019:
text: On just the first day of the war, more than 1,300 protesters across Russia, many of them chanting “No to war,” were detained, The Times reported, quoting a rights group. That’s no small number in a country where Putin brooks little dissent.
ref: 2022 February 25, Thomas L. Friedman, “We Have Never Been Here Before”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
synonyms: word: abear
word: abide
word: aby
word: accept
word: allow
word: bear
word: bide
word: brook
word: dree
word: endure
word: forbear
word: go along with
word: live with
word: pass
word: pocket
word: pouch
word: put up with
word: stand
word: stick
word: stomach
word: suffer
word: swallow
word: take
word: take sitting down
word: thole
word: tolerate
word: undergang
word: undergo
glosses: To bear; endure; support; put up with; tolerate.
raw_tags: in the negative
examples: text: Yea, my Lord: how brooks your Grace the ayre, / After your late toſſing on the breaking Seas?
ref: 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 34:
text: The girl’s spirit would brook a husband under no such conditions: she was not minded to run forward because Pen chose to hold out the handkerchief, and her tone, in reply to Arthur, showed her determination to be independent.
ref: 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 28, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
synonyms: apply
employ
utilize
glosses: To enjoy the use of; make use of; profit by; to use, enjoy, possess, or hold.
synonyms: word: brook
word: deserve
word: earn
word: garner
word: merit
word: reap
word: win
word: be worthy of
glosses: To earn; deserve.
Derived terms: abrook
unbrookable