browse
English
Etymology
Middle English browsen, from Old French brouster, broster (“to nibble off buds, sprouts, and bark; browse”), from brost (“a sprout, shoot, bud”), from a Germanic source, perhaps Frankish *brust (“shoot, bud”), from Proto-Germanic *brustiz (“bud, shoot”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrews- (“to swell, sprout”). Cognate with Bavarian Bross, Brosst (“a bud”), Old Saxon brustian (“to sprout”). Doublet of brut, breast, and brush.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /bɹaʊz/
Audio (US) (file) - Homophone: brows
- Rhymes: -aʊz
Verb
browse (third-person singular simple present browses, present participle browsing, simple past and past participle browsed)
- To scan, to casually look through in order to find items of interest, especially without knowledge of what to look for beforehand.
- I'm just browsing around.
- I stopped in several bookstores to browse.
- To move about while sampling, such as with food or products on display.
- (transitive, computing) To navigate through hyperlinked documents on a computer, usually with a browser.
- (intransitive, of an animal) To move about while eating parts of plants, especially plants other than pasture, such as shrubs or trees.
- 1997, Colorado State Forest Service
- Also, when planting to provide a source of browse for wintering deer and elk, protect seedlings from browsing during the first several years; an electric fence enclosure can offer effective protection.
- 1997, Colorado State Forest Service
- (archaic, transitive) To feed on, as pasture; to pasture on; to graze.
- 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Gardener’s Daughter; or, The Pictures”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], OCLC 1008064829, page 21:
- The fields between / Are dewy-fresh, brows'd by deep-udder'd kine, […]
-
Derived terms
- browser
- browsable
- browsy
Translations
scan, casually look through
|
move about while sampling
|
move about while eating parts of plants
|
Noun
browse (countable and uncountable, plural browses)
- (uncountable) Young shoots and twigs.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:
- And with their horned feet the greene gras wore, / The whiles their Gotes upon the brouzes fedd […]
- 1717, John Dryden [et al.], “(please specify |book=I to XV)”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 731548838:
- Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler steed, / On browz, and corn, and flowery meadows feed.
-
- (uncountable) Fodder for cattle and other animals.
- 1997, Colorado State Forest Service
- Also, when planting to provide a source of browse for wintering deer and elk, protect seedlings from browsing during the first several years; an electric fence enclosure can offer effective protection.
- 2007, Texas Parks and Wildlife Service
- In the Panhandle Area, bison eat browse that includes mesquite and elm.
- 1997, Colorado State Forest Service
- (countable) That which one browses through; something to read.
- 1899, Rudyard Kipling, Stalky & Co.
- Here he buried himself in a close-printed, thickish volume which had been his chosen browse for some time.
- 1899, Rudyard Kipling, Stalky & Co.
Further reading
- browse in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- browse in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
Anagrams
- Bowers, Bowser, bowers, bowres, bowser
Danish
Verb
browse (imperative brows, present browser, past browsede, past participle browset)
- (computing) to browse
Dutch
Pronunciation
Audio (file)
Verb
browse
- first-person singular present indicative of browsen
- (archaic) singular present subjunctive of browsen
- imperative of browsen
German
Pronunciation
Audio (file)
Verb
browse
- inflection of browsen:
- first-person singular present
- first/third-person singular subjunctive I
- singular imperative