abroach

Tapped; broached.

Adjective

  1. Tapped; broached.
  2. Astir; moving about.

Origin

From Middle English abroche, from Norman, from Old French abroche (“to spigot”). Equivalent to a- + broach.

Adverb

  1. Broached; in a condition for letting out or yielding liquor, as a cask which is tapped.
    • 1709, Joseph Addison, The Tatler, No. 146, 16 March, 1709, Glasgow: Robert Urie, 1754, p. 115, Jupiter, in the beginning of his reign, finding the world much more innocent than it is in this iron age, poured very...
    • […] hogsheads of ale were set abroach, to be drained at the freedom of all comers. - 1820, Walter Scott, chapter 11, in Ivanhoe, volume 3, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, page 285:
  2. In a state to be diffused or propagated.
    • I doe the wrong, and first began to braule / The secret mischiefes that I set abroach, / I lay vnto the grieuous charge of others: […] - c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the...
    • 1761, George Colman, The Genius, No. 6, 20 August, 1761, in Prose on Several Occasions, London: T. Cadel, 1787, Volume 1, p. 64, When a person of high rank is destined for the victim, an emissary is dispatched to set...

    Synonyms: afoot astir

Verb

  1. To set abroach; to let out, as liquor; to broach; to tap.
    • on the crosse a pike / Did set again abroach - 1633, George Herbert, The Agonie:

Forms

abroaches abroaching abroached