Word.ws English Dictionary

brooding

/ˈbɹuːdɪŋ/

brooding adjective: broody; incubating eggs by sitting on them. Also the present participle and gerund of brood.

brooding: broody; incubating eggs by sitting on them
Image: Thamizhpparithi Maari, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

brooding (comparative more brooding, superlative most brooding)

  1. Broody; incubating eggs by sitting on them.
    • A brooding hen can be aggressive.
  2. Deeply or seriously thoughtful.
    • You like T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"? You must be so brooding and deep.
    • his brooding good looks and distinct Scottish brogue won him legions of fans worldwide.2020 November 1, Alan Young, “Sean Connery obituary: From delivering milk in Fountainbridge to the definitive James Bond”, in The Scotsman

Noun

brooding (plural broodings)

  1. A spell of brooding; the time when someone broods.
    • The lyrics are different: gone are the dreamy, un-self-conscious proclamations of affection from the EP (which was reissued with additional tracks), replaced with vividly dark broodings, thick with doubt and fear.2009 June 22, Jon Caramanica, “Once-Dreamy Indie Rockers, Masking Hurt With High-Gloss Sheen”, in New York Times

Also used as

brooding is also the present participle and gerund of brood.

Examples of brooding in a sentence

  • Under the rock was a midshipman fish, brooding a mass of eggs.
  • He sat brooding over the upcoming battle, fearing the outcome.
  • With an embossed cover, vellum pages and brooding, mysterious artwork, this tome has a rich, premium feel.

All 25 example sentences with brooding

Forms of brooding

Adjective
comparativemore brooding
superlativemost brooding
Noun
pluralbroodings

Words formed from brooding

Phrases with brooding

Questions about brooding

What does brooding mean?
Brooding means broody; incubating eggs by sitting on them.
What part of speech is brooding?
Brooding can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce brooding?
Brooding is pronounced /ˈbɹuːdɪŋ/.

Words near brooding in the dictionary

  1. broodier
  2. broodies
  3. broodiest
  4. broodily
  5. broodiness
  6. brooding
  7. brooding above
  8. broodingest
  9. broodingly
  10. broodingness
  11. broodings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brooding (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-brooding.wav.

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