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broil

UK/bɹɔɪl/US/bɹɔɪl/
verbB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #11,948 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: broiled, broiling

To broil is to cook by direct heat, or to be uncomfortably hot. Broil the steak, broiling in the sun, a broiling afternoon.

The cooking sense is American, where an oven's broiler is what Britain calls a grill and the heat comes from above. A broiler chicken is one bred for meat rather than eggs. To broil in the sun is to be unpleasantly overheated.

www.elbpresse.de · CC BY-SA 4.0

Definitions of broil

  1. 1verbbroilTo cook by direct heat, or to be uncomfortably hot.B2+

    “Broil the fish for a few minutes on each side until it's golden.”

broil is a cooking, or a heating.

Where it comes from

Old French brusler means to burn. The word for a quarrel, an embroilment, is a different root.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *h₁ews-

  2. Old French

    brusler

  3. Anglo-Norman

    bruiller

  4. Middle English

    broylen

  5. English, today

    broil

Built from

  • brulen · Middle English — to broil, cook
  • broiller · Old French — to broil, roast
  • bruller · Old French — to broil, roast, char

From Middle English broylen, brulen (“to broil, cook”), from Anglo-Norman bruiller, broiller (“to broil, roast”), Old French brusler, bruller (“to broil, roast, char”), a blend of two Old French - verbs:

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

broil in the wild

  • In the United States, when the heat source for grilling comes from above, grilling is called broiling.

    Grilling

  • London broil is a beef dish made by grilling marinated beef, then cutting it across the grain into thin strips.

    London broil

  • While the inclusion of "London" in the name may suggest British origins, the dish is American, and "broil" is an uncommon term in British English.

    London broil

  • The Apply_heat frame also lists a number of words that represent it, known as lexical units (LUs), like fry, bake, boil, and broil.

    FrameNet

  • Meat steaks are usually grilled, pan-fried, or broiled, while fish steaks may also be baked.

    List of steak dishes

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.