brow
/bɹaʊ/
brow noun: the bony ridge over the eyes, upon which the eyebrows are located.
Noun
brow (plural brows)
- The bony ridge over the eyes, upon which the eyebrows are located.
- The eyebrow.
- ’Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair, / Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream / That can entame my spirits to your worship.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- And his arch’d brow, pulled o’er his eyes, / With solemn proof proclaims him wise.c. 1763, Charles Churchill, The Ghost
- The forehead.
- Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestirr’d thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
Like bubbles in a late-disturb’d stream,[…]c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and... - Mr. Banks’ panama hat was in one hand, while the other drew a handkerchief across his perspiring brow.1913, Robert Barr, chapter 5, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad
- Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
- Aspect; appearance; facial expression.
- Take it away; I'm frightened! / But she, with placid brow, / Cries: "This is our Kitty-witty! / Why don't you love her now?"1919, Katherine Mansfield, “Friendship”, in J. Middleton Murry, editor, The Scrapbook of Katherine Mansfield, published 1940
- The projecting upper edge of a steep place such as a hill.
- the brow of a precipice
- The first tine of an antler's beam.
- A gallery in a coal mine running across the face of the coal.
- The gangway from ship to shore when a ship is lying alongside a quay.
- The hinged part of a landing craft or ferry which is lowered to form a landing platform; a ramp.
Verb
brow (third-person singular simple present brows, present participle browing, simple past and past participle browed)
- To bound or limit; to be at, or form, the edge of.
- Tending my flocks hard by i' the hilly crofts / That brow this bottom glade.1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey...
Proper noun capitalized: Brow
Brow (plural Brows)
- A surname.
brow meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
brow in Tamil
- நெற்றி, புருவம், முன் மண்டை
brow in Urdu
- brow
- للاٹ lalāṭ
brow in Malayalam
- പുരികം
brow in Kannada
- ಹುಬ್ಬು, ಭ್ರೂ, ಹಣೆ, ಲಲಾಟ, ಫಾಲ, ಶಿಖರ
Examples of brow in a sentence
- I wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand.
- She knotted her brow in concentration while attempting to unravel the tangled strands.
- I drew a deep breath and wiped my brow.
Synonyms of brow
Forms of brow
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | brows |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | brows |
| present participle | browing |
| past participle | browed |
| past | browed |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Brows |
Origin of brow
From Middle English browe, from Old English brū, from Proto-West Germanic *brāwu, from Proto-Germanic *brūwō, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃bʰrúHs (“brow”). Cognate with Scots broo (“brow”), Dutch brauw (“brow”), German Braue (“eyebrow”), Danish, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish bryn (“brow”), Faroese, Icelandic brún (“brow”). See also Middle Irish brúad, Tocharian B pärwāne (“eyebrows”), Lithuanian bruvi̇̀s, Serbo-Croatian obrva (“eyebrow”), Russian бровь (brovʹ, “brow”), Ancient Greek ὀφρύς (ophrús, “eyebrow”), Sanskrit भ्रू (bhrū, “eyebrow”)), Persian ابرو (abru, “eyebrow”), Khowar بروُ (bruú, “eyebrow”).
* As an English surname, from the noun brow. * As a French surname, variant of Brault and also Breaux. Compare Bro, Broe. * As a Dutch surname, Americanized from Brouw, either from the verb brouwen (“to brew”) or a variant of op den Brouw, a toponym of uncertain origin (possibly itself related to brouwen).
Words formed from brow
- beetle brow
- beetle-browed
- Berry Brow
- bibrow
- brow-ague
- brow-antlered deer
- browband
- brow-beat
- browbeat
- browbeaten
- browbone
- browbound
- browful
- brow job
- browless
- brow-level
- browlift
- browline
- browman
- browplasty
- brow ridge
- browspot
- Dobb Brow
- eye brow
- eyebrow
- highbrow
- low-brow
- lowbrow
- medium-brow
- midbrow
- middlebrow
- monobrow
- no-brow
- overbrow
- Scouse brow
- sweat of one's brow
- sweat of the brow
- underbrow
- unibrow
- Weatherby brow
Phrases with brow
Words that rhyme with brow
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about brow
- What does brow mean?
- Brow means the bony ridge over the eyes, upon which the eyebrows are located.
- What is brow in Tamil?
- Brow in Tamil is நெற்றி, புருவம், முன் மண்டை. See Brow meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is brow?
- Brow can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce brow?
- Brow is pronounced /bɹaʊ/.
- What is the plural of brow?
- The plural of brow is brows.
Words near brow in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: brow (page history and authors); Brow (page history and authors); brow (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); للاٹ (Urdu) (page history and authors); brow (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); brow (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-brow.ogg.
Cite this entry: “brow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.