broach

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bɹəʊtʃ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /bɹoʊt͡ʃ/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -əʊtʃ
• Homophone: brooch

From Middle English broche, from Old French broche, from Vulgar Latin *brocca, originally a feminine form of Latin broccus, perhaps ultimately of Gaulish origin (see Scottish Gaelic bròg; cognate to brochure).[1]

broach (plural broaches)

1. A series of chisel points mounted on one piece of steel. For example, the toothed stone chisel shown here.
2. (masonry) A broad chisel for stone-cutting.
3. Alternative spelling of brooch
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 123:

     Mr. S. had a large straw hat, and striped jacket and trousers, and his shirt fastened at the throat by a broach with Carry's hair, for he was always quite above wearing a neckcloth.

   • 2012, Cara C. Putman, A Promise Born:

     She pinned a broach on her jacket.
     When Viv saw it, she laughed. “Is that the best you can do? A flower broach?”

4. A spit for cooking food.
   • 1622, Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [i.e. Francis Bacon], The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, […], London: […] W[illiam] Stansby for Matthew Lownes, and William Barret, →OCLC:

     He turned a broach that had worn a crown.

5. An awl; a bodkin; also, a wooden rod or pin, sharpened at each end, used by thatchers.
   • 1840, “Cottages - Thatching”, in The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge:

     It [the straw] is laid on to a considerable thickness and firmly secured by ropes or twisted straw, and pinned down by sharpened sticks called 'broaches'

6. (architecture, UK, dialect) A spire rising from a tower.
7. A spit-like start on the head of a young stag.
8. The stick from which candle wicks are suspended for dipping.[2]
9. The pin in a lock which enters the barrel of the key.

broach (third-person singular simple present broaches, present participle broaching, simple past and past participle broached)

1. (transitive) To make a hole in, especially a cask of liquor, and put in a tap in order to draw the liquid.
   • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):

     How often has the broached barrel proved not to be for joy and heart effusion, but for duel and head-breakage.

2. (transitive) To open, to make an opening into; to pierce.

   French knights at Agincourt were unable to broach the English line.

3. (transitive, figuratively) To begin discussion about (something).

   I broached the subject of contraceptives carefully when the teenager mentioned his promiscuity.

   • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 4, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:

     Yet he was much too much scared of broaching any man, let alone one in a peaked cap, to dare to ask.

   • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VI, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I, II, or III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

     I have tried on several occasions to broach the subject of my love to Lys; but she will not listen.

   • 1964 December, “New Books”, in Modern Railways, page 429:

     THE POCKET ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF BRITISH STEAM LOCOMOTIVES. By O. S. Nock. Blandford Press. 18s.
     Mr. Nock, he remarks in his preface, was "incredulous" when the idea of this book of 192 colour gravure illustrations of a representative collection of British steam locomotives from Locomotion to BR's Evening Star was broached to him.

• brochure

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

broach (third-person singular simple present broaches, present participle broaching, simple past and past participle broached)

1. (intransitive) To be turned sideways to oncoming waves, especially large or breaking waves.

   The small boat broached and nearly sank, because of the large waves.

2. (transitive) To cause to turn sideways to oncoming waves, especially large or breaking waves (usually followed by to; also figurative).
   • 18th C, Thomas Dibdin, Tom Bowling

     Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling ... for death hath broached him to.

   Each time we came around into the wind, the sea broached our bow.

3. (nautical, intransitive, of a submerged submarine, torpedo, or similar) To break the surface of the water.

• broach to

• Chorba

• brutch, bruch, broche, brotch

From Middle Scots broche, from Middle English broche, from Old French broche, from Vulgar Latin *brocca, originally a feminine form of Latin broccus; possibly ultimately of Gaulish provenance.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbrɒtʃ/
• (Southern Scots) IPA^(key): /ˈbrəʊtʃ/

broach (plural broachs)

1. (archaic) A spindle.
2. (archaic) A slender or thin person (especially as a nickname).