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Nest vs Brood - What's the difference?

nest | brood |

In intransitive terms the difference between nest and brood

is that nest is to hunt for birds' nests or their contents (usually "go nesting") while brood is to dwell upon moodily and at length.

In transitive terms the difference between nest and brood

is that nest is to place one thing neatly inside another, and both inside yet another (and so on) while brood is to protect.

As nouns the difference between nest and brood

is that nest is a structure built by a bird as a place to incubate eggs and rear young while brood is the young of certain animals, especially a group of young birds or fowl hatched at one time by the same mother.

As verbs the difference between nest and brood

is that nest is to build or settle into a nest while brood is to keep an egg warm to make it hatch.

nest

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A structure built by a bird as a place to incubate eggs and rear young.
  • A place used by another mammal, fish, amphibian or insect, for depositing eggs and hatching young.
  • A snug, comfortable, or cozy residence or job situation.
  • A retreat, or place of habitual resort.
  • A hideout for bad people to frequent or haunt; a den.
    • a nest of thieves
    ''That nightclub is a nest of strange people!
  • A home that a child or young adult shares with a parent, guardian, or a person acting in the capacity of a parent or guardian. A parental home.
    • ''I am aspiring to leave the nest .
  • (cards) A fixed number of cards in some bidding games awarded to the highest bidder allowing him to exchange any or all with cards in his hand.
    • ''I was forced to change trumps when I found the ace, jack, and nine of diamonds in the nest .
  • (military) A fortified position for a weapon, e.g. a machine gun nest.
  • (computing) A structure consisting of nested structures, such as nested loops or nested subroutine calls.
  • * 1981 , Donnamaie E. White, Bit-Slice Design: Controllers and ALU's , Garland STPM Press, ISBN 9780824071035, page 49:
    • Subroutine 4 cannot jump out of the subroutine nest in one step. Each return address must be popped from the stack in the order in which it was pushed onto the stack.
  • * 1993 August, Bwolen Yang et al., "Do&Merge: Integrating Parallel Loops and Reductions", in Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing (workshop proceedings), Springer (1994), ISBN 978-3-540-57659-4, page 178:
    • Our analysis to this point has assumed that in a loop nest , we are only parallelizing a single loop.
  • A circular bed of pasta, rice, etc. to be topped or filled with other foods.
  • (geology) An aggregated mass of any ore or mineral, in an isolated state, within a rock.
  • A collection of boxes, cases, or the like, of graduated size, each put within the one next larger.
  • A compact group of pulleys, gears, springs, etc., working together or collectively.

    • Quotations

    * (English Citations of "nest")

    Derived terms

    * don't shit in your own nest * feather one's nest / feather one's own nest * nest egg

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (of animals) To build or settle into a nest.
  • To settle into a home.
    • We loved the new house and were nesting there in two days!
  • To successively neatly fit inside another.
    • I bought a set of nesting mixing bowls for my mother.
  • To place in, or as if in, a nest.
  • To place one thing neatly inside another, and both inside yet another (and so on).
    • There would be much more room in the attic if you had nested all the empty boxes.
  • To hunt for birds' nests or their contents (usually "go nesting").
  • * 1895 , Alfred Emanuel Smith, Francis Walton
    • After the first heavy frost, when acorns were falling, I took a friend into partnership and went nesting .

    Anagrams

    * (l) * (l) * (l), (l) * (l) * (l), (l)

    See also

    * (wikipedia "nest") * ----

    brood

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The young of certain animals, especially a group of young birds or fowl hatched at one time by the same mother.
  • * Bible, Luke xiii. 34
    • As a hen doth gather her brood under her wings.
  • (uncountable) The young of any egg-laying creature, especially if produced at the same time.
  • The eggs and larvae of social insects such as bees, ants and some wasps, especially when gathered together in special brood chambers or combs within the colony.
  • The children in one family.
  • That which is bred or produced; breed; species.
  • * Chapman
    • Flocks of the airy brood , / (Cranes, geese or long-necked swans).
  • (mining) Heavy waste in tin and copper ores.

    • See also

    * flock, litter, young, get, issue, offspring, posterity, progeny, seed, kin * cicada

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To keep an egg warm to make it hatch.
    • In some species of birds, both the mother and father brood the eggs.
  • To protect.
    • Under the rock was a midshipman fish, brooding a mass of eggs.
  • To dwell upon moodily and at length.
    • He sat brooding about the upcoming battle, fearing the outcome.
  • * Nathaniel Hawthorne
    • Brooding over all these matters, the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit.
  • * Tennyson
    • when with downcast eyes we muse and brood

    External links

    *

    Anagrams

    * ----