[see -ING1.]
1. The action of incubating or hatching.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 53. Brodynge of byrdys, focio.
1552. Huloet, Brodyng as hennes doth to chyckens.
1656. Cowley, Pind. Odes, 25, note. To come like an Egg that is not yet hatcht, but a brooding.
b. fig.
1805. Southey, Madoc in Azt., ii. But I the while Reck’d not the brooding of the storm.
c. attrib., as in brooding-place, -pouch, -room.
1648. Milton, Psalm lxxxiv. The Swallow there … Hath built her brooding nest.
1852. Home Circle, April, 155. ‘Brooding-places’ … places selected by various sea-fowls, where they in common build their nests, lay their eggs, and bring up their young.
1884. Roe, in Harper’s Mag., May, 930/2. The box was placed on a … shelf in the brooding-room.
2. A cherishing in the mind; moody mental contemplation.
1873. Morley, Rousseau, I. 71. The morbid broodings which active life reduces to their lowest degree in most young men.
1871. R. H. Hutton, Ess. (ed. 2), I. Pref. 15. The brooding of man’s nature … over this … experience.
