brook

• IPA^(key): /bɹʊk/
• (obsolete) IPA^(key): /bɹuːk/[1]

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ʊk

From Middle English brouken (“to use, enjoy”), from Old English brūcan (“to enjoy, brook, use, possess, partake of, spend”), from Proto-Germanic *brūkaną (“to enjoy, use”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰruHg- (“to enjoy”). Cognate with Dutch (ge)bruiken, German brauchen (“to need, require, use”), Scots brook, brouk (“to use, enjoy”), West Frisian brûke (“to use”), Latin fruor (“enjoy”). Related to fruit.

brook (third-person singular simple present brooks, present participle brooking, simple past and past participle brooked)

1. (transitive, obsolete, except in Scots) To use; enjoy; have the full employment of.
   • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, Richard II, Act III scene ii:

     […] How brooks your grace the air, / After your late tossing on the breaking seas?

2. (transitive, obsolete) To earn; deserve.
3. (transitive) To bear; endure; support; put up with; tolerate (usually used in the negative, with an abstract noun as object).

   I will not brook any disobedience.   I will brook no refusal.   I will brook no impertinence.

   • 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 6, in A Cuckoo in the Nest:

     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.

   • 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

     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

• (use): apply, employ, utilize
• (earn): See also Thesaurus:deserve
• (tolerate): See also Thesaurus:tolerate

• abrook

From Middle English brook, from Old English brōc (“brook; stream; torrent”), from Proto-Germanic *brōkaz (“stream”), from Proto-Indo-European *mrāǵ- (“silt; slime”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Brouk (“swamp”), Dutch broek (“marsh; swamp”), German Low German Brook (“swamp; marsh”), German Bruch (“swamp; marsh”), Ancient Greek βράγος (brágos, “shallows”) and Albanian bërrakë (“swampy soil”).

brook (plural brooks)

1. A body of running water smaller than a river; a small stream.
   • Bible, Deuteronomy viii. 7

     The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water.

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     empties itself, as doth an inland brook / into the main of waters

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], OCLC 752825175, page 035:

     But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection. ¶ […] The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window at the old mare feeding in the meadow below by the brook, […].

2. (Sussex, Kent) A water meadow.
3. (Sussex, Kent, in the plural) Low, marshy ground.

• beck
• burn
• coulee
• creek
• stream

• Borko, Borok, bokor, obrok

From Middle English bro(o)ken (“to use, enjoy, digest”), from Old English brūcan (“to use, enjoy”). See also brouk.

tae brook

1. To enjoy the use or owndom of.