browse

Language: en

🇬🇧 /ˈbraʊz/ 🇺🇸 /ˈbraʊz/

📖 Definitions

  1. verb
    To look through or examine items casually without a specific purpose, such as in a shop or online.; To feed on leaves, twigs, or young shoots of plants, as animals do.; To navigate and view content on the internet or a computer system.
  2. noun
    The act of looking through items casually.; Young shoots, twigs, and leaves suitable for animals to feed on.

🔗 Details

Word forms

countable / uncountable Plural: browses 3rd sing.: browses Past: browsed Past part.: browsed Pres part.: browsing

Collocations

browse the internetbrowse throughhave a browsebrowse aroundbrowse the webbrowse the shelves

Derivatives

browserbrowsable

Synonyms

scanskimperuselook throughsurf

Commonly confused

graze
EN: 'Browse' refers to animals eating leaves and shrubs (or casually looking through things); 'graze' refers to animals eating grass.
search
EN: 'Browse' implies casual, undirected looking; 'search' implies a targeted, goal-oriented effort to find something specific.

Spelling tips

EN: Remember the silent 'w': it's 'browse,' not 'brouse' or 'browze.' The 'ow' makes the /aʊ/ sound as in 'cow.'

💬 Examples

  1. She spent the afternoon browsing through the bookshop.

  2. The deer browsed on the tender shoots at the edge of the forest.

  3. He browsed the internet for hours looking for travel deals.

  4. I had a quick browse through the magazine rack.

  5. The goats found plenty of browse along the hillside.