Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Sitting, as a bird on her eggs: as, a brooding hen.
  • Warming: as, “the brooding heat,”
  • Pondering; thinking deeply; disposed to ponder or think deeply: as, a brooding disposition.
  • Settled; rooted; fixed in the heart: a figurative use derived from the steadfastness with which a bird sits on her eggs.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective worried and thinking long and intensely, especially about a particular problem.
  • noun the process of sitting on eggs so as to hatch them by the warmth of the body; -- mostly used of birds.
  • adjective good at incubating eggs, especially of a fowl kept for that purpose.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective of a bird Broody; incubating eggs by sitting on them.
  • adjective Deeply or seriously thoughtful.
  • verb Present participle of brood.
  • noun A spell of brooding; the time when someone broods.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective deeply or seriously thoughtful
  • noun sitting on eggs so as to hatch them by the warmth of the body
  • noun persistent morbid meditation on a problem

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Then he stood there and stared after it for a long moment, his expression brooding.

    SUSPICION KATE BRIAN 2009

  • Then he stood there and stared after it for a long moment, his expression brooding.

    SUSPICION KATE BRIAN 2009

  • Still, he speculated wistfully that his newfound cheerfulness was not his authentic self, which he described as brooding and creative.

    NYT > Home Page M.D. By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN 2012

  • At such times he was remarkably taciturn, and would sit in brooding silence or go almost immediately to bed.

    CHAPTER XI 2010

  • But his brooding is interrupted when they arrive at the alumnus’s well-appointed home and discover his would-be interviewer dead.

    The Magicians by Lev Grossman: Questions 2009

  • Just as it begins in brooding shadows, so does the feature end practically that way in a lonely house on a cliff, where the identity of killers is revealed.

    Caught in the Crossfire: Adrian Scott and the Politics of Americanism in 1940s Hollywood 2007

  • Stella Vision, at the advertising news site Shots, reports on the latest, The Pilot, a World War I mini-story filmed appropriately in brooding monochrome.

    Archive 2004-06-01 Ray Girvan 2004

  • Stella Vision, at the advertising news site Shots, reports on the latest, The Pilot, a World War I mini-story filmed appropriately in brooding monochrome.

    Stella pilot film Ray Girvan 2004

  • He does not spend his time in brooding on the fact that he is a Roman Catholic, and he is not particularly conscious of being different from his non-Catholic neighbours.

    The Road to Wigan Pier 1937

  • At such times he was remarkably taciturn, and would sit in brooding silence or go almost immediately to bed.

    Chapter 11 1913

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