Word.ws English Dictionary

brook

UK/bɹʊk/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/bɹɵk/

brook verb: to bear; endure; support; put up with; tolerate.

brook: to bear; endure; support; put up with; tolerate
Image: Keith Williamson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

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

  1. (formal, transitive) To bear; endure; support; put up with; tolerate.
    • brook no refusal
    • I will not brook any disobedience.
  2. (transitive, otherwise Scotland) To enjoy the use of; make use of; profit by; to use, enjoy, possess, or hold.
    • Yea, my Lord: how brooks your Grace the ayre, / After your late toſſing on the breaking Seas?1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to...
    • The girl’s spirit would brook a husband under no such conditions: she was not minded to run forward because Pen chose to hold out the handkerchief, and her tone, in reply to Arthur, showed her determination to be independent.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 28, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...
    Synonyms:
    apply, employ, utilize, use
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To earn; deserve.
    Synonyms:
    deserve, earn, garner, merit, reap, win, be worthy of

Noun

brook (plural brooks)

  1. (Northeastern, US, parts of UK) A body of running water smaller than a river; a small stream.
    • empties itself, as doth an inland brook / into the main of watersc. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 8:7
  2. (Kent, Sussex) A water meadow, or (in the plural) low, marshy ground.

Proper noun capitalized: Brook

Brook

  1. A habitational surname from Middle English for someone living by a brook.
  2. A surname from Hebrew, a transliteration and normalization of Hebrew ברך (barúkh, “blessed”).
  3. A male given name transferred from the surname, variant of Brooks.
  4. A female given name transferred from the surname, of modern usage, variant of Brooke.
  5. A town in Newton County, Indiana, United States.
  6. A hamlet in Tedburn St Mary parish, Teignbridge district, Devon, divided into Higher and Lower Brook (OS grid ref SX8091).
  7. A hamlet in Tavistock parish, West Devon district, Devon (OS grid ref SX4772).
  8. A hamlet in Bramshaw parish, New Forest district, Hampshire (OS grid ref SU2714).
  9. A hamlet in King's Somborne parish, Test Valley district, Hampshire (OS grid ref SU3428).
  10. A village in Brighstone parish, Isle of Wight (OS grid ref SZ3983).
  11. A village and civil parish in Ashford borough, Kent (OS grid ref TR0644).
  12. A hamlet in Albury parish, Guildford borough, Surrey (OS grid ref TQ0646).
  13. A hamlet in Witley parish, Waverley borough, Surrey (OS grid ref SU9338).
  14. A hamlet in Llanddowror community, Carmarthenshire, Wales (OS grid ref SN2609).

brook meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

brook in Hindi

a small stream
कुल्या kulyā, नाला nālā

brook in Tamil

a small stream
ஓடை ōṭai

brook in Urdu

a small stream
نالا nālā, نالَہ nāla

brook in Bengali

ক্ষুদ্র নদী, সহ্য করা
More languagesFewer languages
brook in Telugu
కయ్య kayya
brook in Malayalam
തോട് tōṭŭ, അരുവി aruvi
brook in Kannada
ಕಿರುತೊರೆ, ಹಳ್ಳ, ತಾಳು, ಸಹಿಸು
brook in Tagalog
saimsim, sapa, batis
brook in Arabic
غَدِير ḡadīr
brook in Malay
anak sungai kecil
brook in Thai
ธาร taan, ลำธาร lam-taan
brook in Vietnamese
lạch
brook in Myanmar
ချောင်း hkyaung:

Examples of brook in a sentence

  • I will brook no impertinence.
  • how shall I brook to be the first cause of difference between a father and son, to whom the averted look and the harsh word have been hitherto unknown?1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter II, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry...
  • But Sophia's mother was not the woman to brook defiance.1921, Ben Travers, chapter 6, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
  • By now the Spaniards, who were unable to brook the length of the discourse, had left their places and fallen on the Indians1966, Garcilaso de la Vega, H. V. Livermore, Karen Spalding, Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru (Abridged)...
  • The norm is submission to the supposed iron laws of technological inevitability that brook no impediment.2018, Shoshana Zuboff, chapter 13, in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism:

All 37 example sentences with brook

Synonyms of brook

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of brook

Forms of brook

Verb
third-person singular presentbrooks
present participlebrooking
past participlebrooked
pastbrooked
Noun
pluralbrooks
Proper noun
alternative formBrooke
alternative formBrooks

Past tense of brook: brooked

Plural of brook: brooks

Origin of brook

From Middle English brouken (“to use, enjoy”), from Old English brūcan (“to enjoy, brook, use, possess, partake of, spend”), from Proto-West Germanic *brūkan, from Proto-Germanic *brūkaną (“to enjoy, use”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰruHg- (“to enjoy”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian bruke (“to need”), Dutch bruiken (“to use”), German Low German bruken (“to need”), German brauchen (“to need”), Swedish bruka (“to use”), Icelandic brúka (“to use”).

From Middle English brook, from Old English brōc (“brook; stream; torrent”), from Proto-West Germanic *brōk (“stream”).

* As an English surname, from the noun brook. * As a north German surname, from Low German Brook (“swamp, marsh”), related to the above. * As a Dutch surname, Americanized from Broek, from broek, also related to the above. * As a Jewish and German surname, Americanized from Bruck, Bruch (from Bruch (“wetland, marsh”)).

Words formed from brook

Phrases with brook

25 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with brook

38 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about brook

What does brook mean?
Brook means to bear; endure; support; put up with; tolerate.
What is brook in Hindi?
Brook in Hindi is कुल्या (kulyā), नाला (nālā). See Brook meaning in Hindi.
How do you use brook in a sentence?
I will brook no impertinence.
What part of speech is brook?
Brook can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce brook?
Brook is pronounced /bɹʊk/ (UK).
What is the past tense of brook?
The past tense of brook is brooked.

Words near brook in the dictionary

  1. broodstrain
  2. broodstrains
  3. broody
  4. broogh
  5. brooghs
  6. brook
  7. brook alder
  8. brook alders
  9. brook lamprey
  10. brook lampreys
  11. brook mint

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brook (page history and authors); Brook (page history and authors); brook (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); కయ్య (Telugu) (page history and authors); brook (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-brook.ogg.

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