browse

English Online Dictionary. What means browse‎? What does browse mean?

English

Etymology

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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bɹaʊz/
• Homophone: brows
• Rhymes: -aʊz

Verb

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.

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.
5. (archaic, transitive) To feed on, as pasture; to pasture on; to graze.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

browse (countable and uncountable, plural browses)

1. (uncountable) Young shoots and twigs.
2. (uncountable) Fodder for cattle and other animals.
3. (countable) The act of browsing through something.

4. (countable) That which one browses through; something to read.

Further reading

• “browse”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “browse”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Bowers, Bowser, bowers, bowres, bowser

Danish

Verb

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

1. (computing) to browse

Dutch

Pronunciation

Verb

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

German

Pronunciation

Verb

browse

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