browse

From 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.

• IPA^(key): /bɹaʊz/

• Audio (US):

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• Homophone: brows
• Rhymes: -aʊz

browse (third-person singular simple present browses, present participle browsing, simple past and past participle browsed)

1. 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.

2. To move about while sampling, such as with food or products on display.
3. (transitive, computing) To navigate through hyperlinked documents on a computer, usually with a browser.
4. (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.

5. (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, page 21:

     The fields between / Are dewy-fresh, brows'd by deep-udder'd kine, […]

browse (countable and uncountable, plural browses)

1. (uncountable) Young shoots and twigs.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     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:

     Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler steed, / On browz, and corn, and flowery meadows feed.

2. (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.

3. (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.

• “browse”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “browse”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• Bowers, Bowser, bowers, bowres, bowser

browse (imperative brows, present browser, past browsede, past participle browset)

1. (computing) to browse

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browse

1. inflection of browsen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative
   4. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive

• Audio:

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browse

1. inflection of browsen:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. first/third-person singular subjunctive I
   3. singular imperative