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Brodie

proper nounnounattested in dialogue

  • United States//ˈbɹoʊdi//

A surname from Scottish Gaelic.

proper noun

  1. 1

    A surname from Scottish Gaelic.

    “Surprise,” says Hal Brodie, drily, caught in the act of taking books and records from Luisa’s shelves and putting them into his gym bag. ... ... Luisa is angry with herself. “So. Reclamation Day.”

  2. 2

    A male given name transferred from the surname.

  3. 3

    A hamlet in Moray council area, Scotland, the location of Brodie Castle (OS grid ref NH9757).

Etymology

Scottish habitational surname of uncertain meaning. Probably of Pictish or Gaelic origin. Some of the suggestions that have been advanced as to the meaning of the name Brodie are: * "ditch" or "mire", from the old Irish word broth; * "muddy place", from the Gaelic word brothach; * "a point", "a spot", or "level piece of land", from the Gaelic word Brodha; * or originated from the Pict name Brude, Bruid or Bridei from King Bridei of the Picts.

noun

  1. 1

    informalA suicidal leap.

    "We don't believe this bird took a Brodie," Bruckman told them. "He wouldn't know the meaning of remorse, and he's not the suicidal type. […]

  2. 2

    figurativeA risky enterprise; a chance taken.

    August Marien took a brodie (any one is apt to) by getting married last month.

Etymology

Named after Steve Brodie (1861–1901), who made a disputed claim to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived.

Forms

plural
Brodies
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).