brew

English

Etymology 1

Middle English brewen, from Old English brēowan, from Proto-West Germanic *breuwan, from Proto-Germanic *brewwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁-. Doublet of burn.

Cognate with Dutch brouwen, German brauen, Swedish brygga, Norwegian Bokmål brygge; also Ancient Greek φρέαρ (phréar, “well”), Latin fervēre (“to be hot; to burn; to boil”), Old Irish bruth (“violent, boiling heat”), Sanskrit भुर्वन् (bhurván, “motion of water”). It may be related to English barley

Pronunciation

• enPR: bro͞o, IPA^(key): /bɹuː/, /bɹuʊ̯/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

  • (Standard Southern British) IPA^(key):
• (Wales, Ottawa Valley, Southern American English) IPA^(key): /bɹɪʊ̯/
• Rhymes: -uː

Verb

brew (third-person singular simple present brews, present participle brewing, simple past and past participle brewed)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To make tea or coffee by mixing tea leaves or coffee beans with hot water.
   • 1935, Christopher Isherwood, chapter 11, in Mr Norris Changes Trains, Penguin, published 1942, page 113:

     Elderly people sat indoors, in the damp. shabby houses, brewing malt coffee or weak tea and talking without animation […]

2. (transitive) To heat wine, infusing it with spices; to mull.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Go, brew me a pottle of sack finely.

3. (transitive, intransitive) To make a hot soup by combining ingredients and boiling them in water.
4. (transitive, intransitive) To make beer by steeping a starch source in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast.
5. (transitive) To foment or prepare, as by brewing

   Synonyms: contrive, plot, hatch

   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: , London: [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, , published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus:  (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC, page 106:

     Hence with thy brew’d inchantments, foul deceiver […]

6. (intransitive) To attend to the business, or go through the processes, of brewing or making beer.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat and drink […]

7. (intransitive, of an unwelcome event) To be in a state of preparation; to be mixing, forming, or gathering.
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,

   • 2004 October 29, Marco R. Della Cava, “Vaccine shortage pricks tempers”, in Statesman Journal, volume 152, number 214, Salem, OR, page 2A:

     Of course, no one knows what kind of flu season is brewing, the perfect storm of a new strain hitting a largely unvaccinated population or a mercifully mild few months.

   • 2011 January 11, Jonathan Stevenson, “West Ham 2 - 1 Birmingham”, in BBC‎:

     Grant may have considered that only a performance of the very highest quality could keep him in a job - and the way his players started the game gave the 55-year-old shelter from the storm that was brewing.

8. (transitive, obsolete) To boil or seethe; to cook.
   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 6:

     She had one day to get up very early in the morning to brew, when the other servants said to her: 'You had better mind you don't get up too early, and you mustn't put any fire under the copper before two o'clock.'

Derived terms

• as you have brewed, so you must drink
• brew up
• brewage
• brewer
• brewery
• brewhouse

Translations

Noun

brew (plural brews)

2. The mixture formed by brewing; that which is brewed; a brewage, such as tea or beer.
   • 1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 529:

     Six great bottles of one of the Hong Kong brews had been brought to wash down the brandy and the fragments of rice and mee and meat-fibres that clung to the back teeth.

   1. (slang) A serving of beer.

      Synonym: brewski

   2. (British, slang) A cup of tea.
      • 2007 March 6, Julie Rutterford, Life on Mars, Season 2, Episode 3:

        Landlady: You're not stoppin' for a brew?
        Gene Hunt: No thanks, love. Better crack on.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

Middle English brewe (“eyebrow”), from Old English bru (“eyebrow”). Doublet of brow

Noun

brew (plural brews)

1. (British, dialect) An overhanging hill or cliff.

Translations

References

Anagrams

• BWER

Middle English

Verb

brew

1. Alternative form of brewen

Old Polish

Etymology

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *bry, from Proto-Balto-Slavic *brū́ˀs, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃bʰrúHs.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (10^th–15^th CE) /brɛfʲ/
• IPA^(key): (15^th CE) /brɛfʲ/

Noun

brew f

1. eyebrow
   • Middle of the 15th century, Rozmyślanie o żywocie Pana Jezusa‎, page 149:

     O brwiach Jezusowych. Brwi miał wielmi czarne a nadobne (de superciliis. Nigra supercilia)

     [O brwiach Jezusowych. Brwi miał wielmi czarne a nadobne (de superciliis. Nigra supercilia)]

Descendants

• Polish: brew

References

• B. Sieradzka-Baziur, editor (2011–2015), “brew”, in Słownik pojęciowy języka staropolskiego [Conceptual Dictionary of Old Polish] (in Polish), Kraków: IJP PAN, →ISBN

Polish

Polish Wikipedia has an article on:

brew

Wikipedia ^pl

Etymology

Inherited from Old Polish brew.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /brɛf/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛf
• Syllabification: brew

Noun

brew f

1. eyebrow

Declension

Derived terms

Further reading

• brew in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• brew in Polish dictionaries at PWN