Brooded

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈbɹuːdɪd/

Definitions

1. To have been absorbed in troubling thoughts or worries about a particular issue To have engaged in a long period of dark reflection and contemplation over distressing topics To have persisted in a gloomy state of mind while ruminating on unresolved problems
2. To have thought carefully and seriously about a problem ; to have felt anxious or sad about something over time ; to have incubated eggs by sitting on them
3. To have engaged in deep mental reflection over an issue ; to have maintained feelings of unease or sorrow ; to have warmed eggs through sustained body heat to facilitate hatching

Etymology: This is an inflected form, so the answer is brief: "brooded" is the past tense and past participle of "brood," and the verb traces back to Old English "brōd," which meant the young produced by hatching, as well as the act of hatching and incubating eggs. Its ancestor in Proto-Germanic, "*brōduz," carried the sense of heat, which fits the image of a bird sitting warm on her eggs. The modern sense of dwelling darkly on troubles is a later extension. The idea is that a hen sits motionless over her clutch for long hours, and the picture of an animal hunched in unmoving concentration was carried over to a person lost in gloomy thought.

Synonyms: meditated, pondered, mused, contemplated, reflected

Antonyms: dismissed, ignored, overlooked, forgot, disregarded