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Accost vs Broach - What's the difference?

accost | broach |

In transitive terms the difference between accost and broach

is that accost is to speak to first; to address; to greet while broach is to be overcome or submerged by a wave or surge of water.

accost

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To approach and speak to boldly or aggressively, as with a demand or request.
  • *{{quote-news, date = 21 August 2012
    • , first = Ed , last = Pilkington , title = Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die? , newspaper = The Guardian , url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/21/death-penalty-trial-reggie-clemons?newsfeed=true , page = , passage = The Missouri prosecutors' case against Clemons, based partly on incriminating testimony given by his co-defendants, was that Clemons was part of a group of four youths who accosted the sisters on the Chain of Rocks Bridge one dark night in April 1991. }}
  • (obsolete) To join side to side; to border; hence, to sail along the coast or side of.
  • * So much [of Lapland] as accosts the sea. - Fuller
  • (obsolete) To approach; to come up to.
    • (Shakespeare)
  • To speak to first; to address; to greet.
  • * Milton
    • Him, Satan thus accosts .
  • * 1847 , , (Jane Eyre), Chapter XVIII
    • She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request—"She hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink."
  • (obsolete) To adjoin; to lie alongside.
  • * Spenser
    • the shores which to the sea accost
  • * Fuller
    • so much [of Lapland] as accosts the sea
  • To solicit sexually.

    • Derived terms

    * accostment

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (rare) Address; greeting.

    • Anagrams

    *

    broach

    English

    Etymology 1

    (etyl) broche, from

    Noun

    (es)
  • A series of chisel points mounted on one piece of steel. (rfex)
  • (masonry) A broad chisel for stone-cutting.
  • A spit for cooking food.
  • * Francis Bacon
    • He turned a broach that had worn a crown.
  • An awl; a bodkin; also, a wooden rod or pin, sharpened at each end, used by thatchers.
    • (Forby)
  • (architecture, UK, dialect) A spire rising from a tower.
  • A spit-like start on the head of a young stag.
  • The stick from which candle wicks are suspended for dipping.
    • (Knight)
  • The pin in a lock which enters the barrel of the key.

    • Verb

    (es)
  • To make a hole in, especially a cask of liquor, and put in a tap in order to draw the liquid.
  • To open, to make an opening into; to pierce.
    • French knights at Agincourt were unable to broach the English line.
  • (senseid) (figuratively) To begin discussion about (something).
    • I broached the subject of contraceptives carefully when the teenager mentioned his promiscuity.
  • * 1913 ,
    • Yet he was much too much scared of broaching any man, let alone one in a peaked cap, to dare to ask.
  • * 1918 , (Edgar Rice Burroughs), Chapter VI
    • I have tried on several occasions to broach the subject of my love to Lys; but she will not listen.
    Related terms
    *

    Etymology 2

    (en)

    Verb

    (es)
  • To be turned sideways to oncoming waves, especially large or breaking waves.
    • The small boat broached and nearly sank, because of the large waves.
  • To cause to turn sideways to oncoming waves, especially large or breaking waves.
  • To be overcome or submerged by a wave or surge of water.
    • Each time we came around into the wind, the sea broached our bow.

    References

    English terms with multiple etymologies