brochure [M18th] Although now associated particularly with holidays, brochure is a French word meaning ‘stitching’ or ‘stitched work’. The connection is that the first brochures were little booklets that were stitched together rather than properly bound. The root, Latin brocchus or broccus ‘projecting [tooth] something that pierces’, connects brochure with broach [ME] ‘to pierce a cask’ and brooch [ME]. This was originally a variant of broach and meant a skewer (as in brochette [LME]) and then an ornamental pin. Broccoli [L17th] is from the same source, which became brocco ‘sprout, shoot, projecting tooth’ in Italian, and then broccoli ‘little sprouts’.