BROOK

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does brook mean? 

• BROOK (noun)
  The noun BROOK has 1 sense:

1. a natural stream of water smaller than a river (and often a tributary of a river)

  Familiarity information: BROOK used as a noun is very rare.

• BROOK (verb)
  The verb BROOK has 1 sense:

1. put up with something or somebody unpleasant

  Familiarity information: BROOK used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BROOK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A natural stream of water smaller than a river (and often a tributary of a river)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

brook; creek

Context example:

the creek dried up every summer

Hypernyms ("brook" is a kind of...):

stream; watercourse (a natural body of running water flowing on or under the earth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "brook"):

brooklet (a small brook)

Instance hyponyms:

Bull Run (a creek in northeastern Virginia where two battles were fought in the American Civil War)

Aegospotami; Aegospotamos (a creek emptying into the Hellespont in present-day Turkey; at its mouth in 405 BC the Spartan fleet under Lysander defeated the Athenians and ended the Peloponnesian War)

• BROOK (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they brook    ... he / she / it brooks   
Past simple: brooked   
Past participle: brooked   
-ing form: brooking   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Put up with something or somebody unpleasant

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

abide; bear; brook; digest; endure; put up; stand; stick out; stomach; suffer; support; tolerate

Context example:

She stuck out two years in a miserable marriage

Hypernyms (to "brook" is one way to...):

allow; countenance; let; permit (consent to, give permission)

Verb group:

suffer (experience (emotional) pain)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "brook"):

accept; live with; swallow (tolerate or accommodate oneself to)

hold still for; stand for (tolerate or bear)

bear up (endure cheerfully)

take lying down (suffer without protest; suffer or endure passively)

take a joke (listen to a joke at one's own expense)

sit out (endure to the end)

pay (bear (a cost or penalty), in recompense for some action)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

Sam cannot brook Sue

 Context examples 

I drew up my canoe as close as I could to the shore, and hid myself behind a stone by the little brook, which, as I have already said, was excellent water.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

She gave some to Toto, and taking a pail from the shelf she carried it down to the little brook and filled it with clear, sparkling water.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

How say you, Sir William, will you not try the smack of the famed Spanish swine, though we have but the brook water to wash it down?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Soon, however, they came to a little brook, and as there was no bridge or foot-plank, they did not know how they were to get over it.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I slaked my thirst at the brook, and then lying down, was overcome by sleep.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The gentle burbling of a brook, or the sound of the wind in the trees can physically change our mind and bodily systems, helping us to relax.

(Sound of Nature Helps Us Relax, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

I am sure this diary would have been a mystery to him which he would not have brooked.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I could hear the murmur of our brook somewhere ahead of me, but there was a tangle of trees and brushwood between me and it.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"I must endeavour to subdue my mind to my fortune. I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve."

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)