From Middle English browe, from Old English brū, from Proto-West Germanic *brāwu, from Proto-Germanic *brūwō, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃bʰrúHs.

Compare Middle Irish brúad, Tocharian B pärwāne, Lithuanian bruvìs, Serbo-Croatian obrva, Russian бровь, Ancient Greek ὀφρύς, Sanskrit भ्रू), Persian ابرو, Khowar بروُ.

• (RP, America) IPA: /bɹaʊ/

brow (plural brows)

1. The ridge over the eyes; the eyebrow.
   • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene v]:

     ’Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair, / Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream / That can entame my spirits to your worship.

   • c. 1763, Charles Churchill, The Ghost:

     And his arch’d brow, pulled o’er his eyes, / With solemn proof proclaims him wise.

2. The first tine of an antler's beam.
3. The forehead.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, scene iii]:

     Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
     And thus hath so bestirr’d thee in thy sleep,
     That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
     Like bubbles in a late-disturb’d stream, […]

4. The projecting upper edge of a steep place such as a hill.

   the brow of a precipice

5. (mining) A gallery in a coal mine running across the face of the coal.
6. (figurative) Aspect; appearance.
7. (nautical) The gangway from ship to shore when a ship is lying alongside a quay.
8. (nautical) The hinged part of a landing craft or ferry which is lowered to form a landing platform; a ramp.

• forehead

• French: andouiller d'œil, maître andouiller, andouiller de massacre

• Italian: ciglio, orlo, cima
• Portuguese: pico

• Italian: passerella da sbarco
• Russian: трап

• Italian: passerella da sbarco

brow (brows, present participle browing; simple past and past participle browed)

1. To bound or limit; to be at, or form, the edge of.
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], 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 19 ↗, lines 531–532:

     Tending my flocks hard by i' the hilly crofts / That brow this bottom glade.

• As an English surname, from the noun brow.
• As a French - surname, variant of Brault and also Breaux. Compare Bro, Broe.
• As a Dutch - surname, Americanized from Brouw, either from the verb brouwen or a variant of op den Brouw, a toponym of uncertain origin (possibly itself related to brouwen).

1. Surname.