Forms: (6 brose), 6–7 brouse, 6–8 brouze, 7 broose, 7–9 browze, 6– browse. [f. BROWSE sb.1, or perhaps directly from 16th c. F. brouster, now brouter (in same sense), according to Littré, f. F. broust, brout ‘bud, young shoot’; the Eng. form being influenced by that of the sb., q.v. The pronunciation with -z may have begun in the verb; cf. the analogy of grass, graze, advice, advise, use, to use, etc. (Or if the verb was ever broust in Eng., we might suppose the final -t to have been lost, by confusion with that of the pa. t. and pa. pple.)]
1. intr. or absol. To feed on the leaves and shoots of trees and bushes; to crop the shoots or tender parts of rough plants for food: said of goats, deer, cattle. (Sometimes carelessly used for graze, but properly implying the cropping of scanty vegetation.)
1542. Boorde, Dyetary, xvi. (1870), 275. At the x byt on the grasse, or brosynge on the tree.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Brouter & manger, to brouze, to feede like an Oxe or Goate.
1593. Nashe, Christ’s T., 32 b. All the bushes and boughes … were hewd downe and feld for men (like brute beastes) to brouze on.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., III. iii. 68. If any where I haue them, ’tis by the sea-side, brouzing of Iuy.
1612. T. Taylor, Comm. Titus ii. 1 (1619), 336. Cattell forsaking the … pastures to broose vpon leaues and boughes.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, I. 38. Goats … browze upon the steeps of Snowdon.
1848. Carpenter, Anim. Phys., 141. The Giraffe uses its long tongue to lay hold of the young shoots on which it browzes.
1870. Bryant, Homer, I. II. 74. The horses browsed on lotus-leaves.
b. fig. or transf.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., III. vi. 38. There is cold meat i’ th’ Caue, we’l brouz on that.
1823. Lamb, Elia, Ser. I. xv. (1865), 119. And browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage [a good Library].
1870. Lowell, Among My Books, Ser. I. (1873), 9. We thus get a glimpse of him browsing—for … he was always a random reader—in his father’s library.
2. trans. To crop and eat (leaves, twigs, etc.).
1533. Fitzherb., Husb., § 131. Fell the vnder wodde fyrste in wynter that thy cattell or beastes maye eate & brouse the toppes.
1591. Spenser, Virg. Gnat, 82. Others … brouze the woodbine twigges.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xviii. 284. Where late they brouz’d the veluet buds.
1789. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Odes, xiii. 4. Forc’d, fore’d to brouse, like goats, the lanes for food.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., iii. (1878), 56. Little trees which had been perpetually browsed down by the cattle.
1864. Daily Tel., 21 May, 5/5. The immense herds of deer have browsed all the leaves away as high as their necks could reach.
3. causal. To feed (cattle) on (twigs, etc.).
1550. [see BROWSER 1].
1669. Worlidge, Syst. Agric., vi. § 2 (1681), 94. Rangers and Keepers of Parks … brousing their Deer on it.
