Etymology: Middle English brocor, -our, brokour, < Anglo-Norman brocour (also broggour) = Old Northern French brokeor ( < Latin type *broccātōrem), nominative brokiere ( < Latin *broccātor) of which Godefroy has one example explained by him as ‘celui qui vend du vin au broc’, as to the precise sense of which see below. The Central French equivalent was brocheor, brochière; and the word is the agent noun of the Old French verb brochier, Old Northern French brokier ( < Latin *broccāre) in the sense ‘to broach’ or ‘tap’ a cask. Brocheor, brokeor stand in precisely the same relation to the noun broche, broc, and the verb brochier, brokier, as tapster or rather the earlier tapper stand to the noun tap, and verb to tap in Germanic: the brocheor, brokeor, brokour, or broker, was lit. a tapster, who retailed wine ‘from the tap’, and hence, by extension, any retail-dealer, one who bought to sell over again, a second-hand dealer, or who bought for another, hence a jobber, middleman, agent, etc. Compare sense of Latin caupo. The Romanic verb broccare was evidently < brocco , brocca in the sense of ‘spike, piercing instrument’ ( < Latin broccus , brocca adjective: see broach n.¹). But these nouns appear to have afterwards had their sense modified from the verb, so that in the Old French vendre à broke, or à broche, in modern French vendre à broc, the sense passed from ‘broach’, to ‘broaching, tapping’, and at length to ‘the quantity of wine drawn at a broaching or tapping’, and hence ‘the jug or vessel which held this’, as in modern French broc (from 5 to 10 litres). Anglo-Norman had also a derivative form abrocour, and there were Anglo-Latin words abrocator, abrocamentum; also brocarius ‘proxeneta, interpres et consiliarius contractuum’, and abrocarius. Brocarius appears to have been formed on the noun (broc(c)a, broc(c)us); abrocarius must have been formed on the apparent analogy of brocator, abrocator.

Etymology: < broker n. Compare slightly earlier brokering n.