Forms: 1 bród, 3–5 brod, 4–5 brode, 5–6 broode, Sc. brude, 4– brood. [OE. bród, cogn. with Du. broed neut., MDu. broet -d-; also with OHG., MHG. bruot fem., ‘heat, warmth, hatching, that which is hatched, brood,’ mod.G. brut ‘hatching, brood,’ from Teutonic verb-root bro- to warm, to heat.]
1. Progeny, offspring, young.
a. esp. of animals that lay eggs, as birds, serpents, insects, etc. A brood: a family of young hatched at once, a hatch.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Hom., II. 10. Þæt sind beon … of ðam huniʓe hi bredað heora brod.
a. 1250. Owl & Night., 1634. Ich not to hwan þu bredst þi brod.
c. 1385. Chaucer, L. G. W., 133. The foulere that … distroyed hadde hire brod.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, F vj. A Brode of hennys.
1530. Palsgr., 201/2. Brood of byrdes, covuee doiseaux.
1611. Bible, Luke xiii. 34. As a henne doeth gather her brood vnder her wings.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Eclog., IV. 28. The Serpents Brood shall die.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 121, ¶ 1. A Hen followed by a Brood of Ducks.
1760. trans. Keysler’s Trav., I. 356. Before the violent heats set in the first brood of [silk-] worms have finished their work.
1805. A. Mackintosh, Driffield Angler, 294. Brood of black game, or heath fowl.
1873. G. C. Davies, Mount. & Mere, ii. 9. A wild duck leads her brood by the rushes.
† b. of cattle or large animals. Obs.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 3712. Ful of erf and of netes brod.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (1865), II. 201 (Mätz.). Among hem [bestes] al þe brood is liche to þe same kynde.
c. Of human beings: Family, children. (Now generally somewhat contemptuous.)
a. 1300. Cursor M., 1507. Þar he wond ai wit his brode.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst., 104. A house fulle of brude.
1480. Caxton, Descr. Brit., 40. They prayse fast troian blode For therof come all her brode.
c. 1590. Burel, Queens Entry Edinb. Thair infants sang, & bairnly brudis Quho had but new begun thair mudis.
1598. Drayton, Heroic. Ep., xv. 38. Make this a meane to rayse the Nevils Brood.
1610. Shaks., Temp., III. ii. 113. She will become thy bed … And bring thee forth braue brood.
1643. Rogers, Naaman, 25. The most poore, despised … silly wench among all thy brood.
1680. Otway, Hist. C. Marius, 8. There’s a Resemblance tells whose Brood she came of.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., 129. A widow with a brood of daughters.
† d. The young of fish; fry. Obs.
1389. Act 13 Rich. II., xix. § 1. Le frie ou brood des salmons.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIII. xxvi. (1495), 458. Smale fysshes brynge forthe theyr brood in place wherin is but lytyll water.
1531–2. Act 23 Hen. VIII., xviii. Broode and frie of fisshe in the saide riuer.
1558. Act 1 Eliz., xvii. § 1. Any young Brood, Spawn or Fry of Eels.
e. fig. Of things inanimate.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., III. i. 86. Such things become the Hatch and Brood of Time.
1632. Milton, Penseroso, 96. The brood of Folly without father bred.
1798. Frere, New Morality, in Anti-Jacobin, 9 July. To drive and scatter all the brood of lies.
1863. Geo. Eliot, Romola, I. ix. (1880), I. 136. A brood of guilty wishes.
† 2. The cherishing of the fœtus in the egg or the womb; hatching, breeding. To sit on brood or a-brood: as a hen on her eggs, fig. to sit brooding. Cf. ABROOD. Obs. or arch.
1250–1398. [see ABROOD].
a. 1300. Seven Sins, in E. E. P. (1862), 19. A-pan is muk he sit a-brode.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., I. 575. What woman cannot sette an hen on broode And bryng her briddes forth?
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 53. Brode of byrdys, pullificacio.
c. 1534. trans. Pol. Verg. Eng. Hist. (1846), I. 182. Verie commodius for the broode and feeding of cattayle.
1602. Shaks., Ham., III. i. 173. There’s something in his soule? O’re which his Melancholly sits on brood.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Countr. Farm, 80. To fat their Feasant Cockes and Hennes for Feastiuall dayes … and not for brood.
1872. Browning, Fifine, lix. 12. You still blew a spark at brood I’ the greyest embers.
† b. Hence: Parentage, extraction, nativity.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., I. III. 8. At last … Arose the virgin borne of heauenly brood. Ibid., V. vii. 21. They doe thy linage, and thy Lordly brood … They doe thy love forlorne in womens thraldome see.
c. attrib. with sense ‘breeding’; as in brood class; brood hen, mare, sow, and the like, where however the words are often hyphened: see 6.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (1531), 13. He … cheryssheth vs, as … the broode henne her chekyns.
1814. Scott, Diary, in Lockhart (1839), IV. 234. The brood sow making a distinguished inhabitant of the mansion.
1883. Birmingham Daily Post, 8 Aug., 5/6. The mares and foals shown in the brood class afford ample testimony to the character of the district as a good nursery for young horses.
1886. Sat. Rev., 6 March, 327/2. A brood mare, one of the blue-blooded matrons of the Stud-book.
3. A race, a kind; a species of men, animals, or things, having common qualities. Now usually contemptuous; = ‘swarm, crew, crowd.’
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 213 b. The secrett whisperings of Pelagius brood.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, 22 a. Cornish houses are most pestred with Rats, a brood very hurtful.
1706. Hearne, Collect. (1885), I. 208. Presbyterians and the rest of yt Brood.
1713. Addison, Cato, III. v. (J.). Have you forgotton … Its tainted Air, and all its Broods of poison?
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. iii. 96. A brood of petty despots.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 28 June, 1/1. The unclean brood of pashas and beys at present infesting London.
4. spec. The spat of oysters in its second year.
1862. Macm. Mag., Oct., 504. This brood is carefully laid down in the oyster-beds of Whitstable.
1865. Pall Mall Gaz., 5 Dec., 5. The free fishermen buy not only ‘brood,’ as the spawn is called when two years old, but oysters much nearer maturity.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 154/1. Spat in the second year is denominated ‘brood.’
5. Min. ‘The heavier kinds of waste in tin and copper ores (Cornwall).’ Raymond, Mining Gloss.
1880. W. Cornw. Gloss. Brood, impurities mixed with ore.
6. Comb., frequently with sense ‘breeding, hatching,’ as brood-basket, -bed, -capsule, -comb (of bees), -goose, -mare, -oven, -oyster, -pouch, -song, -sow; brood-hen, a breeding-hen; also an old name for the constellation of the Pleiades; † brood-man (L. proletarius), a Roman citizen of the lowest class who served the republic only with his children.
1848. Sketches Rur. Affairs, 236. A hen and her chickens are sometimes carried … to the turnip-field, in a sort of basket, called a *brood-basket.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. v. (1641), 45/2. The rich Merchant resolutely ventures, So soon as th’ Halcyon in her *brood-bed enters.
1870. Nicholson, Zool. (1880), 235. Instead of producing simple ‘Echinococci,’ it [the tape-worm] may bud off numerous *‘brood-capsules.’
1776. Debraw, in Phil. Trans., LXVII. 27. The other piece of *brood-comb.
a. 1626. Fletcher, Hum. Lieut., II. i. They have no more burden than a *brood-goose, brother.
1526. [see 2 c] *Broode henne.
1551. Recorde, Cast. Knowl., 265. In Greek Pleiades, and also Atlantides: they are named in englysh the brood Henne, and the Seuen starres.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 298. There should not be put vnder a brood-hen aboue 25 egs at one time to sit vpon. Ibid., II. 30. The occultation or setting of the Brood-hen.
1610. Healey, St. Aug. Citie of God, III. xvii. 133. A … *Broodman was … euer forbore from all offices and vses in the Cittie, beeing reserued onely to begette children.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 29. Flocks and herds, and *broodmares abounded in their pastures.
1737. G. Smith, Cur. Relations, I. iv. 490. *Brood-Ovens, contriv’d to breed and hatch all sorts of Eggs.
1864. Daily Tel., 18 May, 4/3. From *brood-oysters, whelks, shell-fish and the rest, the villages … derive £30,000 a year.
1869. Nicholson, Zool. (1880), 522. In the curious American Tree-frogs … the females have a dorsal *brood-pouch.
1881. F. M. Balfour, Embryol., II. 55. In Syngnathus the eggs are carried in a brood-pouch of the male situated behind the anus.
1840. Browning, Sordello, I. 279. He … sends his soul along, With the cloud’s thunder, or a dove’s *brood-song.
1815. Scott, Guy M., Introd. 9. Her sons … stole a *brood-sow from their kind entertainer.
