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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

browse.

To scan, to casually look through in order to find items of interest, especially without knowledge of what to look for beforehand.

6 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/bɹaʊz//bɹæʊz/
  1. To scan, to casually look through in order to find items of interest, especially without knowledge of what to look for beforehand.

    I'm just browsing around.
    I stopped in several bookstores to browse.
  2. To move about while sampling, such as with food or products on display.

  3. To navigate through hyperlinked documents on a computer, usually with a browser.

    transitive
  4. To move about while eating parts of plants, especially plants other than pasture, such as shrubs or trees.

    intransitive
  5. To feed on, as pasture; to pasture on; to graze.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

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.

noun/bɹaʊz//bɹæʊz/
  1. Young shoots and twigs.

    uncountable
  2. Fodder for cattle and other animals.

    uncountable
  3. The act of browsing through something.

    countable
    I had a browse in the old bookshop.
  4. That which one browses through; something to read.

    countable
  5. Bruised fish used as bait.

    Cornwall · uncountable
Where this word comes from

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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.