brown
/ˈbɹaʊ̯n/ noun, adjective, verb, proper noun
Forms browns browner brownest browning browned broon Browne Broun
- noun (countable and uncountable) A colour like that of chocolate or coffee. “The browns and greens in this painting give it a nice woodsy feel.”
- noun (snooker, countable) One of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of 4 points.
- noun (uncountable) Black tar heroin.
- noun (slang, archaic, countable) A copper coin.
- noun A brown horse or other animal.
- noun (sometimes capitalised, countable, informal, ethnic slur) A person of mostly Latin American (or Latino), Middle Eastern/North African, South Asian, and sometimes Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, or rarely Native American descent; a brown-skinned person; someone of mulatto, or biracial appearance.
- noun (entomology) Any of various nymphalid butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae (formerly the family Satyridae), such as those of the genera Heteronympha and Melanitis.
- noun (informal) A brown trout (Salmo trutta).
- adjective Having a brown color/colour.
- adjective (obsolete) Gloomy.
- adjective (US) Latino/Latin American
- adjective (US, loosely, vague) of color.
- adjective (of Asians and Africans) South Asian or sometimes Middle Eastern or North African
- adjective (of East-Eurasian ancestry) Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, or sometimes Native American
- adjective Not green (environmentally irresponsible); anti-green (against environmental protection).
- verb (intransitive) To become brown. “Fry the onions until they brown.”
- verb (childish) Synonym of poop (“to defecate”). “I've just browned myself.”
- verb (cooking, transitive) To cook something until it becomes brown.
- verb (intransitive, transitive) To tan. “Light-skinned people tend to brown when exposed to the sun.”
- verb (transitive) To make brown or dusky.
Synonyms
nongreen antigreen embrown brownify poop brownness Robert Brown John Brown Brown University brownish chocolate-brown dark-brown browned
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English broun, from Old English brūn (“brown; dark; dusky”), from Proto-West Germanic *brūn, from Proto-Germanic *brūnaz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH-. Doublet of bruin.
* Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish brun
* Ancient Greek φρύνη (phrúnē), φρῦνος (phrûnos, “toad”)
From Middle English Broun, originally a nickname for someone with brown hair or a dark complexion. In the United States, sometimes an anglicization and translation of German Braun. Doublet of Bruno and Braun.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Of a dark color, of various shades between black and red or yellow.
- noun A dark color inclining to red or yellow, resulting from the mixture of red and black, or of red, black, and yellow; a tawny, dusky hue.
- verb To make brown or dusky.
- verb To make brown by scorching slightly; as, to brown meat or flour.
Etymology [OE. brun, broun, AS. br; akin to D. bruin, OHG. br, Icel. br, Sw. brun, Dan. bruun, G. braun, Lith. brunas, Skr. babhru. *93, 253. Cf. Bruin, Beaver, Burnish, Brunette.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “brown”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details