Other forms: brooding, broods, brooded
A brood is all the chicks that hatch at the same time — one nest, one clutch of eggs, one batch of open mouths. A hen crossing the yard with a brood of eight strung out behind her.
People use it of children too, half joking: she arrived with the whole brood. The verb is where the word earns its keep. A bird broods when it sits on the eggs to keep them warm, and a person broods when they sit on a bad thought far too long, turning it over and getting nowhere. It takes OVER or ABOUT: he brooded over the argument for days. Brooding as an adjective means dark and heavy — a brooding silence, a brooding sky over the hills.
1nounbroodAll the young birds hatched from one set of eggs at the same time.
“The blackbird was feeding a brood of four in the hedge.”
2nounchildrenSomebody's children, said lightly.
“He turned up at the picnic with his wife and the whole brood.”
3verbthinkTo think about something painful or annoying for a long time without acting on it.
“She brooded over the rejection letter all weekend.”
4verbsitOf a bird: to sit on eggs to keep them warm until they hatch.
“The hen broods for three weeks before anything appears.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
brood is a group of young birds.
Brood goes back to Old English brōd, which covered brooding and hatching alike, from Proto-Germanic *brōduz, 'heat, breeding'. Further back is a Proto-Indo-European root for breath, mist, vapour, steam. Warmth is the idea in every layer: the bird's body heat on the eggs, and the same slow heat a person keeps under a grievance.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰreh₁- — breath, mist, vapour, steam
Proto-Germanic
*brōduz — heat, breeding
Old English
brōd — brood; foetus; breeding, hatching
Middle English
brood
English, today
brood
From Middle English brood, brod, from Old English brōd (“brood; foetus; breeding, hatching”), from Proto-Germanic brōduz (“heat, breeding”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰreh₁- (“breath, mist, vapour, steam”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA