Word.ws English Dictionary

broil

/bɹɔɪl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

archaic/bɹaɪl/

broil verb: to cook by direct, radiant heat.

Verb (1)

broil (third-person singular simple present broils, present participle broiling, simple past and past participle broiled)

  1. (Canada, US, obsolete, transitive) To cook by direct, radiant heat.
    • To broil a pigeon. When you broil them, do them in the same manner, and take care your fire is very clear, and set your gridiron high, that they may not burn, and have a little parsley and butter in a cup. You may split them, and broil them with a little pepper and salt, and you may roast them only...1788, Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy: Which Far Exceeds Any Thing of the Kind Yet Published, page 6
    • To broil Red Mullet. Neither seale nor gut your mullet, wipe them very clean in a cloth, butter half a sheet of writing paper for each fish, put them in, and fasten it all round; have a very clear fire, broil them very gently for twenty minutes, hen put them in a dish, with anchovy sauce and plain...1798, Richard Briggs, The English Art of Cookery…With Bills of Fare for Every Month in the Year…A New Edition, page 70
    Synonyms:
    grill
  2. (Canada, US, transitive) To expose to great heat.
  3. (Canada, US, intransitive) To be exposed to great heat.

Noun (1)

broil (plural broils)

  1. Food prepared by broiling.
    • Cluffe, externally acquiescing, had yet made up his mind, if a decent opportunity presented, to be detected and made prisoner, and that the honest troubadours should sup on a hot broil, and sip some of the absent General's curious Madeira at the feet of their respective mistresses, with all the...1863, J[oseph] Sheridan Le Fanu, “Concerning a Little Rehearsal in Captain Cluffe’s Lodging, and a Certain Confidence between Dr. Sturk and Mr. Dangerfield”, in The House by the Church-yard. […]...

Verb (2)

broil (third-person singular simple present broils, present participle broiling, simple past and past participle broiled)

  1. (transitive) To cause a rowdy disturbance; embroil.
  2. (intransitive, obsolete) To brawl.

Noun (2)

broil (plural broils)

  1. (archaic) A brawl; a rowdy disturbance.
    • come to broils
    • But to give the faireſt Play to every ſide of the Queſtion, I vvill own that there is a Haughtineſs, and Fierceneſs in human Nature, vvhich vvill cauſe innumerable Broils, place Men in vvhat State you pleaſe; but ovvning this, I ſtill inſiſt in charging to Political Regulations, that theſe Broils...1756, [Edmund Burke], A Vindication of Natural Society: Or, A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind from Every Species of Artificial Society. […], London: […] M. Cooper […], →OCLC, page 32
    Synonyms:
    skirmish

broil meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada

broil in Tamil

அடிபிடி, தீயில் நேரடியாக சமை, புரளி, வெதுப்பிய இறைச்சி

broil in Malayalam

toast, grill, barbecue
ചുട്ടെടുക്കുക, തീയിൽ ചുട്ടെടുക്കുക, ചുടുക, പൊള്ളിച്ചു വേവിക്കുക, വരട്ടുക, വറട്ടുക

broil in Kannada

ಸುಡು

Examples of broil in a sentence

  • When you broil them, do them in the same manner, and take care your fire is very clear, and set your gridiron high, that they may not burn, and have a little parsley and butter in a cup.1788, Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy: Which Far Exceeds Any Thing of the Kind Yet Published, page 6:
  • Then bind them about with packthread, sprinkle them with melted butter and salt, and broil them over a gentle fire, turning them from time to time.1813, Bell Plumptre, Domestic Management; Or, the Healthful Cookery-Book, page 247:
  • "Away with this prating dotard," said Front-de Boeuf, "lock him up in the chapel, to tell his beads till the broil be over.1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XXVII, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III)...
  • So, I am safe emerged from these broils! / Amid the wreck of thousands I am whole […]a. 1822 (date written), John Keats, “[Tragedies.] Otho the Great: A Tragedy in Five Acts.”, in [Horace Elisha Scudder], editor, The...

All 17 example sentences with broil

Synonyms of broil

Forms of broil

Verb
third-person singular presentbroils
present participlebroiling
past participlebroiled
pastbroiled
alternative formbroyl
Noun
pluralbroils

Past tense of broil: broiled

Origin of broil

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: * bruir (“to burn”), from Frankish *brōjan (“to burn, scald”) * usler (“to scorch”), from Latin ustulō (“to scorch”)

From Middle English broilen (“to quarrel, present in disorder”), from Anglo-Norman broiller (“to mix up”), from Vulgar Latin *brodiculāre (“to jumble together”) from *brodum (“broth, stew”), from Frankish *broþ (“broth”), from Proto-Germanic *bruþą (“broth”).

Words formed from broil

Words that rhyme with broil

18 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about broil

What does broil mean?
Broil means to cook by direct, radiant heat.
What is broil in Tamil?
Broil in Tamil is அடிபிடி, தீயில் நேரடியாக சமை, புரளி. See Broil meaning in Tamil.
How do you use broil in a sentence?
When you broil them, do them in the same manner, and take care your fire is very clear, and set your gridiron high, that they may not burn, and have a little parsley and butter in a cup.
What part of speech is broil?
Broil can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce broil?
Broil is pronounced /bɹɔɪl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of broil?
The past tense of broil is broiled.

Words near broil in the dictionary

  1. broiest
  2. broification
  3. broiges
  4. broigus
  5. broiguses
  6. broil
  7. broil up
  8. broilable
  9. broiled
  10. broiled up
  11. broiler

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: broil (page history and authors); broil (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); broil (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); broil (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “broil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/broil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.