brood

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The young of certain animals, especially a group of young birds hatched at one time and cared for together.
• noun The children in one family.
• intransitive verb To focus the attention on a subject persistently and moodily; worry.
• intransitive verb To be depressed.
• intransitive verb To sit on or hatch eggs.
• intransitive verb To protect developing eggs or young.
• intransitive verb To hover envelopingly; hang.
• intransitive verb To think about (something) persistently or moodily.
• intransitive verb To sit on or hatch (eggs).
• intransitive verb To protect (developing eggs or young).
• adjective Kept for breeding.

from The Century Dictionary.

• An obsolete form of broad.
• noun Oyster spat in the second year of development.
• To sit persistently on eggs, covering and warming them with the body and wings, for the purpose of hatching them: said of birds.
• To rest fixedly like a brooding bird.
• To meditate long and anxiously; remain a long time in anxiety or solicitous thought; have the mind dwelling persistently on a subject: with on or over.
• To sit over, cover, and cherish: as, a hen broods her chicks; hence, to nourish.
• To cherish with care.
• To ponder over; plan or mature with care: as, “to brood war,”
• To incubate: as, brooded eggs.
• noun Offspring; progeny.
• noun A hatch; the young birds hatched in one nest, or those placed together in the care of one hen, or in an artificial brooder: as, a brood of chickens or of ducks.
• noun That which is bred; species generated; that which is produced; hence, figuratively, sort or kind.
• noun In mining, any heterogeneous mixture with tin or copper ore, as mundic or black-jack.
• noun A north of Scotland name for salmon-fry.
• noun Synonyms Covey, etc. See flock.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• adjective Sitting or inclined to sit on eggs.
• adjective Kept for breeding from; ; having young.
• transitive verb To sit over, cover, and cherish.
• transitive verb rare To cherish with care.
• transitive verb To think anxiously or moodily upon.
• intransitive verb To sit on and cover eggs, as a fowl, for the purpose of warming them and hatching the young; or to sit over and cover young, as a hen her chickens, in order to warm and protect them; hence, to sit quietly, as if brooding.
• intransitive verb To have the mind dwell continuously or moodily on a subject; to think long and anxiously; to be in a state of gloomy, serious thought; -- usually followed by over or on.
• noun The young birds hatched at one time; a hatch.
• noun The young from the same dam, whether produced at the same time or not; young children of the same mother, especially if nearly of the same age; offspring; progeny.
• noun That which is bred or produced; breed; species.
• noun (Mining) Heavy waste in tin and copper ores.
• noun [Poetic] to ponder.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The young of certain animals, especially a group of young birds or fowl hatched at one time by the same mother.
• noun uncountable The young of any egg-laying creature, especially if produced at the same time.
• noun 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.
• noun The children in one family.
• verb transitive To keep an egg warm to make it hatch.
• verb transitive To protect.
• verb intransitive To dwell upon moodily and at length.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• verb hang over, as of something threatening, dark, or menacing
• verb think moodily or anxiously about something