brow

[brou] /braʊ/
noun
1.
Anatomy. the ridge over the eye.
2.
the hair growing on that ridge; eyebrow.
3.
the forehead:
He wore his hat low over his brow.
4.
a person's countenance or mien.
5.
the edge of a steep place:
She looked down over the brow of the hill.
6.
gangplank.
Origin
before 1000; Middle English browe, Old English brū; akin to Old Norse brūn, Sanskrit bhrūs
Can be confused
brows, browse.
Examples from the web for brow
  • But that isn't to say that low-brow stuff is easier to render.
  • They are often motivated by forms of low-brow nationalism, but it's wrong to caste them off as simple provincialism.
  • Neither is compensation determined by the sweat of one's brow.
  • Another possibility is that the high brow and pointy chin dramatically distinguish our faces from those of other mammals.
  • Jenny, a green trolley car with a human face, had a furrowed brow when her wheel buckled and she got stuck on a track.
  • Don't be fooled by the creased brow and sagging jowls on the geezer gingerly ambling into the room.
  • It is about the size of a coconut, with a slight snout and a thick brow visoring its stony sockets.
  • No need for all the high brow long terminology baffle science too.
  • Strategy in mind, brow knit, he moused his moves in a blur.
  • Their friends may give them strange looks, so teach them to clench their fists and furrow their brow to sell it.
British Dictionary definitions for brow

brow

/braʊ/
noun
1.
the part of the face from the eyes to the hairline; forehead
2.
short for eyebrow
3.
the expression of the face; countenance: a troubled brow
4.
the top of a mine shaft; pithead
5.
the jutting top of a hill, etc
6.
(Northern English, dialect) a steep slope on a road
Word Origin
Old English brū; related to Old Norse brūn eyebrow, Lithuanian bruvis, Greek ophrus, Sanskrit bhrūs
Word Origin and History for brow
n.

early 14c., browes, brues "brow, forehead, eyebrow," earlier brouwes (c.1300), bruwen (c.1200), from Old English bru, probably originally "eyebrow," but extended to "eyelash," then "eyelid" by association of the hair of the eyebrow with the hair of the eyelid, the eyebrows then becoming Old English oferbrua "overbrows" (early Middle English uvere breyhes or briges aboue þe eiges).

The general word for "eyebrow" in Middle English was brew, breowen (c.1200), from Old English bræw (West Saxon), *brew (Anglian), from Proto-Germanic *bræwi- "blinker, twinkler" (cf. Old Frisian bre, Old Saxon brawa, Middle Dutch brauwe "eyelid," Old High German brawa"eyebrow," Old Norse bra "eyebrow," Gothic brahw "twinkle, blink," in phrase in brahwa augins "in the twinkling of an eye").

Old English bru is from Proto-Germanic *brus- "eyebrow" (cf. Old Norse brun), from PIE *bhru- "eyebrow" (cf. Sanskrit bhrus "eyebrow," Greek ophrys, Old Church Slavonic bruvi, Lithuanian bruvis "brow," Old Irish bru "edge"). The -n- in the Old Norse (brun) and German (braune) forms of the word are from a genitive plural inflection.

Words for "eyelid," "eyelash," and "eyebrow" changed about maddeningly in Old and Middle English (and in all the West Germanic languages). By 1530s, brow had been given an extended sense of "forehead," especially with reference to movements and expressions that showed emotion or attitude.

brow in Medicine

brow (brou)
n.

  1. The eyebrow.

  2. See forehead.

Slang definitions & phrases for brow

brow

Related Terms

highbrow, lowbrow, middlebrow


Idioms and Phrases with brow

brow

see: