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BROODING
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Persistent morbid meditation on a problem
Synonyms:
brooding; pensiveness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting feelings and emotions
Hypernyms ("brooding" is a kind of...):
melancholy (a feeling of thoughtful sadness)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Sitting on eggs so as to hatch them by the warmth of the body
Synonyms:
brooding; incubation
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural processes
Hypernyms ("brooding" is a kind of...):
birth; birthing; giving birth; parturition (the process of giving birth)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Deeply or seriously thoughtful
Example:
Byron lives on not only in his poetry, but also in his creation of the 'Byronic hero' - the persona of a brooding melancholy young man
Synonyms:
brooding; broody; contemplative; meditative; musing; pensive; pondering; reflective; ruminative
Classified under:
Similar:
thoughtful (exhibiting or characterized by careful thought)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb brood
Context examples:
Come, Victor; not brooding thoughts of vengeance against the assassin, but with feelings of peace and gentleness, that will heal, instead of festering, the wounds of our minds.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
And romantic it certainly was—the fog, like the grey shadow of infinite mystery, brooding over the whirling speck of earth; and men, mere motes of light and sparkle, cursed with an insane relish for work, riding their steeds of wood and steel through the heart of the mystery, groping their way blindly through the Unseen, and clamouring and clanging in confident speech the while their hearts are heavy with incertitude and fear.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
She only roused herself from the broodings of this restless agitation, to let Mrs Clay know that she had been seen with Mr Elliot three hours after his being supposed to be out of Bath, for having watched in vain for some intimation of the interview from the lady herself, she determined to mention it, and it seemed to her there was guilt in Mrs Clay's face as she listened.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
And with the coming of the night, brooding and mourning by the pool, Buck became alive to a stirring of the new life in the forest other than that which the Yeehats had made, He stood up, listening and scenting.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
She felt the loss of Willoughby's character yet more heavily than she had felt the loss of his heart; his seduction and desertion of Miss Williams, the misery of that poor girl, and the doubt of what his designs might ONCE have been on herself, preyed altogether so much on her spirits, that she could not bring herself to speak of what she felt even to Elinor; and, brooding over her sorrows in silence, gave more pain to her sister than could have been communicated by the most open and most frequent confession of them.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Yet, silent as he was, I knew perfectly well what it was over which he was brooding.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Brooding over the case in that den of his, it suddenly struck him what absolutely damning evidence he could make against McFarlane by using that thumb-mark.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Bessie's presence, compared with the thoughts over which I had been brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat cross.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I remember that during our short visit we found the vicar garrulous, but his lodger strangely reticent, a sad-faced, introspective man, sitting with averted eyes, brooding apparently upon his own affairs.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The pity for Jonathan, the horror which he experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
