• IPA: /bɹʊk/
• (obsolete) IPA: /bɹuːk/

brook (brooks, present participle brooking; past and past participle brooked)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To use; enjoy; have the full employment of.
   • circa 1595 William Shakespeare, Richard II (play), Act III scene ii:

     […] How brooks your grace the air, / After your late tossing on the breaking seas?

2. (transitive, obsolete) To earn; deserve.
3. (transitive) To bear; endure; support; put up with; tolerate (usually used in the negative, with an abstract noun as object).

   I will not brook any disobedience.   I will brook no refusal.   I will brook no impertinence.

   • 1966, Garcilaso de la Vega, H. V. Livermore, Karen Spalding, Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru (Abridged), Hackett Publishing ISBN 9781603849289, page 104

     After delivering the reply he ordered the annalists, who have charge of the knots, to take note of it and include it in their tradition. By now the Spaniards, who were unable to brook the length of the discourse, had left their places and fallen on the Indians

• (use) apply, employ, utilize
• (earn) See also Thesaurus:deserve
• (tolerate) See also Thesaurus:tolerate

brook (plural brooks)

1. A body of running water smaller than a river; a small stream.
   • Bible, Book of Deuteronomy viii. 7

     The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water.

   • c. 1596–1598, William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act V, scene i]:

     empties itself, as doth an inland brook / into the main of waters

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], OCLC 752825175 ↗:

     But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection. ¶ […] The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window at the old mare feeding in the meadow below by the brook, […].

2. (Sussex, Kent) A water meadow.
3. (Sussex, Kent, in the plural) Low, marshy ground.

• beck
• burn
• coulee
• creek
• stream

• French: ruisselet
• German: Bach
• Italian: ruscello, rio, corso d'acqua, rivo
• Portuguese: riacho, corgo, córrego
• Russian: руче́й
• Spanish: arroyo, arroyuelo

1. Surname for someone living by a brook.
2. Surname, a transliteration and normalization of Hebrew ברך.
3. A male given name.
4. A female given name.