Browses

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈbɹaʊzɪz/

Definitions

1. To look through items or information casually without a fixed goal
2. To scan or examine something quickly and informally, often to find something of interest
3. To casually explore or sift through various things, frequently in a relaxed or leisurely way

Etymology: "Browses" is the third-person singular present of "browse", so its history is that of the verb. The original sense was rough and agricultural: animals nibbling the tender shoots, buds and leaves of plants. The word passed from a Germanic word for a sprout or bud into Old French as "brouster" and then into Middle English as "browsen", keeping that plant-eating meaning for centuries. The leap to casually looking through shelves or a website came much later, as a figurative extension: a reader grazing through books or goods the way a deer grazes through undergrowth, taking a bite here and there rather than committing to one thing. Few people reading a shop window today would guess they were watching a grazing animal.

Synonyms: scans, peruses, skims

Antonyms: ignores, overlooks