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Brown

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brown¹

  • /ˈbɹaʊ̯n/ Canada, US, UK
  • /ˈbɹæʊ̯n/
  • /ˈbɹaːn/
  • /bɹuːn/ Northumbria

Rhymes with -aʊn

Where it comes from

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH-?

Proto-Germanic *brūnaz

Proto-West Germanic *brūn

Old English brūn

Middle English broun

English brown

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.

Cognates

* Dutch bruin

* German braun

* Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish brun

* Ancient Greek φρύνη (phrúnē), φρῦνος (phrûnos, “toad”)

* Latin brunneus (“brown”)

* Lithuanian bė́ras (“brown”)

* Sanskrit बभ्रु (babhrú, “reddish-brown”)

* West Frisian brún

noun browns · broon

  1. countable, uncountable A colour like that of chocolate or coffee. The browns and greens in this painting give it a nice woodsy feel.
  2. countable One of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of 4 points.
  3. uncountable Black tar heroin.
  4. archaic, countable, slang A copper coin. “To save a journey up the town, / A razor lent here for a brown: / But if you think the price too high, / I beg you won’t the razor try.”
  5. countable, uncountable A brown horse or other animal. […] browns are the soberest, bays are the worst tempered, and chestnuts are the most foolish.
  6. capitalized, countable, ethnic, informal, slur, sometimes 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. Many browns and blacks are immigrants — some of whom have not yet become naturalized citizens of the United States.
  7. countable, uncountable Any of various nymphalid butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae (formerly the family Satyridae), such as those of the genera Heteronympha and Melanitis.
  8. countable, informal, uncountable A brown trout (Salmo trutta).
  9. countable, uncountable A mass of birds or animals that may be indiscriminately fired at. The temptation to have a shot into the brown was great. There was not a head there which was not a big one and the one by himself was not too easy a shot since it is always difficult to shoot when lying in soft snow.
  10. countable, uncountable A brown dye or pigment.
  11. countable, uncountable A pen, pencil, crayon, etc., made of brown pigment.

adjective browner · more brown · brownest · most brown · broon

  1. Having a brown color/colour. But none of those brown dwarfs were speeding along on a trajectory that would carry them out of the galaxy like “runaway” hypervelocity stars observed by astronomers in the last two decades.
  2. obsolete Gloomy.
  3. US, capitalized, sometimes Latino/Latin American Reminds me of the time they asked me and a group of other Latino, predominantly Mexican, friends for our passports when we tried to go to their [expletive] party a little over a year ago.[…] The saddest part is that I don’t think they understand why it’s insulting to ask a brown person for a passpor
  4. US, broadly, capitalized, sometimes of color. By Saad’s accounting – and this is not dissimilar from the white nationalist “great replacement theory” – western societies are bringing about their own destruction by admitting immigrants from poorer, browner and more Muslim countries.
  5. capitalized, sometimes South Asian or sometimes Middle Eastern or North African I think they sort of realized like, oh, we have Aasif who is a Muslim, an American, brown person, you know, who can sit on that fence between cultures and sort of talk about what it is--what this is from the perspective of being an insider and an outsider at the same time.[…] I think there is in the
  6. capitalized, sometimes Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, or sometimes Native American I came to deeply embrace anti-racism in slow, sustained increments. To do so, I had to embrace my own identity as a Brown person -- and understand my own complicity in white supremacy.[…] I had grown up in an entire Southeast Asian culture that had largely been groomed, indoctrinated and brainwashed
  7. Not green (environmentally irresponsible); anti-green (against environmental protection). Near-synonyms: nongreen, antigreen

verb browns · browning · browned · broon

  1. intransitive To become brown. Fry the onions until they brown.
  2. childish Synonym of poop (“to defecate”). I've just browned myself.
  3. transitive To cook something until it becomes brown. Pound an onion, warm a spoonful of ghee and throw in the onion, brown it slightly, add your curry stuff, brown this till it smells pleasantly, […]
  4. intransitive, transitive To tan. Light-skinned people tend to brown when exposed to the sun.
  5. transitive To make brown or dusky. A trembling twilight o'er the welkin moves, / Browns the dim void and darkens deep the groves.
  6. transitive To give a bright brown colour to, as to gun barrels, by forming a thin coating of oxide on their surface. It is mixed uniformly with olive oil, and rubbed upon the iron slightly heated, which is afterwards exposed to the air, till the wished-for degree of browning is produced.
  7. derogatory, ethnic, intransitive, offensive, slang, slur To turn progressively more Hispanic or Latino, in the context of the population of a geographic region. the browning of America

Brown²

  • /bɹaʊn/

Rhymes with -aʊn

Where it comes from

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.

proper noun Browns · Browne · Broun

  1. countable A surname. (The Browns gave the Obamas an ornate penholder made from the timber of a Victorian antislave ship.)
  2. countable, uncountable An English and Scottish surname transferred from the nickname.
  3. countable, uncountable An Irish surname of Anglo-Norman origin, a translation of de Brún.
  4. countable, uncountable An unincorporated community in California; named for hotelier George Brown.
  5. countable, uncountable An unincorporated community in Louisiana; named for landowner George W. Brown.
  6. countable, uncountable An unincorporated community in Oklahoma; named for postmaster Robert H. Brown.
  7. countable, uncountable An unincorporated community in West Virginia; named for early settler John Brown.
  8. countable, uncountable A ghost town in Nevada.
  9. countable, uncountable A number of townships in the United States, listed under Brown Township.
  10. countable, uncountable Brown University.

noun Browns

  1. Alternative letter-case form of brown (“person with a dark complexion”).brown

adjective more Brown · most Brown

  1. Canada, UK, US, often Alternative letter-case form of brown (“of a dark complexion”).brown

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