brown

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.

• IPA^(key): /bɹaʊn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊn

brown (countable and uncountable, plural browns)

1. (countable and uncountable) A colour like that of chocolate or coffee.

   The browns and greens in this painting give it a nice woodsy feel.

   brown:  

2. (snooker, countable) One of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of 4 points.
3. (uncountable) Black tar heroin.
4. (slang, archaic, countable) A copper coin.
   • 1853, Charles John Chetwynd Talbot, Meliora, Or, Better Times to Come, page 247:

     I know there are many persons — some who are themselves poor — who 'never turn a beggar from their door,' but always give them a few browns (halfpence) or some scran (broken victuals).

   • 1883, “The Omnibus”, in London Town‎:

     "We've not had any breakfast,—won't you toss us down a brown?"—
     That's what they call a penny in the streets of London Town.

5. A brown horse or other animal.
   • 1877, George Nevile, Horses and Riding, page 105:

     […] browns are the soberest, bays are the worst tempered, and chestnuts are the most foolish.

6. (sometimes capitalised, countable, informal, ethnic slur) A person of Latino, Middle Eastern or South Asian descent; a brown-skinned person; someone of mulatto or biracial appearance.
   • 2005, Kristen A. Myers, Racetalk: Racism Hiding in Plain Sight:

     Many browns and blacks are immigrants — some of whom have not yet become naturalized citizens of the United States.

7. (entomology) Any of various nymphalid butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae (formerly the family Satyridae).
8. (entomology) Any of certain species of nymphalid butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae, such as those of the genera Heteronympha and Melanitis.
9. (informal) A brown trout (Salmo trutta).
10. (hunting, as "the brown") A mass of birds or animals that may be indiscriminately fired at.
    • 1928, R. Pigot, Twenty-five Years Big Game Hunting, page 166:

      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.

    • 1979, Kevin Andrews, Athens Alive, page 223:

      My anger mounted at this, I opened the courtyard door and raised my musket to fire into the brown; I had loaded it with small shot, and if it had gone off that would have been the death of us and the ruin of all of us in the house.

• Bislama: braon
• Tok Pisin: braun
• → Welsh: brown
• → Tongan: palauni

brown (comparative browner or more brown, superlative brownest or most brown)

1. Having a brown colour.
2. (obsolete) Gloomy.
3. (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.
   1. (US) Latino
      • 2015 November 2 [2014], Susan Svrluga, quoting Ivonne Gonzalez, “Students accuse Yale SAE fraternity brother of saying ‘white girls only’ at party door”, in The Washington Post‎, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 03 November 2015, Grade Point‎:

        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 passport.

   2. (of Asians) South Asian or sometimes Middle Eastern or North African
      • 2021 September 9, Aasif Mandvi, quotee, “Transcript: Race in America: Giving Voice with Aasif Mandvi”, in The Washington Post‎, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 March 2023‎:

        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 sort of South Asian, you know, psyche, a kind of adoration of Western ideals and culture that was sort of implanted into us by the British, you know, and this idea that everything that is Western is superior and better than what we have and what India--you know, what is true to our own culture.

   3. (of East-Eurasian ancestry) Southeast Asian
      • 2020 September 25, Eric J. Daza, “How A 'Secret Asian Man' Embraced Anti-Racism”, in LAist‎, archived from the original on 23 April 2021, Essays‎:

        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 into white-centered thinking over some 450 years of colonization by our Western overlords: Spain for almost 400 years, and then the United States of America for nearly 50 years more.

• American Sign Language: B@Cheek-PalmForward B@Jaw-PalmForward

brown (third-person singular simple present browns, present participle browning, simple past and past participle browned)

1. (intransitive) To become brown.

   Synonyms: (chiefly literary and poetic) embrown, brownify

   Fry the onions until they brown.

   • 2006, Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 269:

     The chicken was browning nicely, the skin beginning to crisp and take on the toasty tones of oiled wood.

2. (cooking, transitive) To cook something until it becomes brown.
   • 1887, Indian Cookery "Local" for Young Housekeepers: Second Edition, page 67:

     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, […]

3. (intransitive, transitive) To tan.

   Light-skinned people tend to brown when exposed to the sun.

4. (transitive) To make brown or dusky.

   Synonym: (chiefly literary and poetic) embrown

   • 1807, Joel Barlow, The Columbiad:

     A trembling twilight o'er the welkin moves, / Browns the dim void and darkens deep the groves.

5. (transitive) To give a bright brown colour to, as to gun barrels, by forming a thin coating of oxide on their surface.
   • 1860, Andrew Ure, Ure’s Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines‎, page 463:

     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.

6. (demography, transitive, intransitive, slang, ethnic slur, usually derogatory, offensive) To turn progressively more Hispanic or Latino, in the context of the population of a geographic region.

   the browning of America

• brunet
• burnet

• golding

Borrowed from English brown.

• IPA^(key): /brou̯n/
• Rhymes: -ou̯n

brown (feminine singular brown, plural brown, equative browned, comparative brownach, superlative brownaf)

1. brown