brook - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com

A brook is a small stream, as in "burbling brook." It also a stuffy way of saying "put up with." The lord of the manor might say, "I will brook no trespassing on my land."

Brook is tailor-made for talking about what you won't stand for—it's always "brook no..." If you brook no criticism of your friend, it means you won't let people speak ill of her. If you brook no brooks, it means you've developed a bizarre stream-hating fetish and will spend the rest of your days trying to stop their flow.

PRIMARY MEANINGS OF: brook

1	n	a natural stream of water smaller than a river (and often a tributary of a river)
2	v	put up with something or somebody unpleasant

FULL DEFINITIONS OF: brook

1

n a natural stream of water smaller than a river (and often a tributary of a river)

Synonyms:: creek

Examples:: Bull Run
a creek in northeastern Virginia where two battles were fought in the American Civil War; Aegospotamos
a creek emptying into the Hellespont in present-day Turkey; at its mouth in 405 BC the Spartan fleet under Lysander defeated the Athenians and ended the Peloponnesian War

Types:: brooklet
a small brook

Type of:: stream, watercourse
a natural body of running water flowing on or under the earth

2

v put up with something or somebody unpleasant

Synonyms:: abide, bear, digest, endure, put up, stand, stick out, stomach, suffer, support, tolerate

: suffer
experience (emotional) pain

Types:: show 8 types...; hide 8 types...; accept, live with, swallow
tolerate or accommodate oneself to; hold still for, stand for
tolerate or bear; bear up
endure cheerfully; take lying down
suffer without protest; suffer or endure passively; take a joke
listen to a joke at one's own expense; sit out
endure to the end; pay
bear (a cost or penalty), in recompense for some action; get one's lumps, take one's lumps
suffer the results or consequences of one's behavior or actions

Type of:: allow, countenance, let, permit
consent to, give permission