brown

[broun]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR brown ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a dark tertiary color with a yellowish or reddish hue.

Offensive. a person whose skin has a light- or dark-brown pigmentation.

adjective, brown·er, brown·est.

of the color brown.

(of animals) having skin, fur, hair, or feathers of that color.

sunburned or tanned.

Often Offensive. (of human beings) having the skin naturally pigmented a brown color.

verb (used with or without object)

to make or become brown.

to fry, sauté, or scorch slightly in cooking: to brown onions before adding them to the stew. The potatoes browned in the pan.

Verb Phrases

brown out, to subject to a brownout: The power failure browned out the southern half of the state.

Idioms

browned off, Slang. angry; fed up.

do it up brown, Informal. to do thoroughly: When they entertain, they really do it up brown.

Origin of brown

before 1000; Middle English; Old English brūn; cognate with Dutch bruin, German braun, Old Norse brūnn; akin to Lithuanian brúnas brown

Related formsbrown·ish, brown·y, adjectivebrown·ness, nouno·ver·brown, verbun·browned, adjectivewell-browned, adjective

Usage note

Brown as a noun and adjective to describe people with a brownish skin color is often perceived as insulting. Historically it has been used by anthropologists and scientists as a racial and ethnic classification to describe various dark-skinned populations, as in North Africa, the Middle East, Malaysia, and South Asia. It is also a term associated with colonialism. In recent times, brown has been used of Hispanics and South Asians in North America, many of whom self-identify as brown.

Brown

[broun]

noun

Charles Brock·den

[brok-duh n] /ˈbrɒk dən/, 1771–1810, U.S. novelist.

CliffordBrownie, 1930–56, U.S. jazz trumpeter.

Edmund Gerald, Jr.Jerry, born 1938, U.S. politician: governor of California 1975–83.

Herbert Charles,1912–2004, U.S. chemist, born in England: Nobel Prize 1979.

James NathanielJimmy, born 1936, U.S. football player and actor.

JohnOld Brown of Osawatomie, 1800–59, U.S. abolitionist: leader of the attack at Harpers Ferry, where he was captured, tried for treason, and hanged.

Margaret Wise,1910–52, U.S. author noted for early-childhood books.

Olympia,1835–1926, U.S. women's-rights activist and Universalist minister: first American woman ordained by a major church.

Robert,1773–1858, Scottish botanist.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for brown

fawn, ginger, tan, toast, amber, brick, nut, buff, coffee, drab, dust, bronze, bay, ecru, beige, rust, copper, cinnamon, russet, puce

Examples from the Web for brown

Contemporary Examples of brown

They became so brown and shriveled that they looked like walking beef jerky with New York accents.
Powerful Congressman Writes About ‘Fleshy Breasts’
Asawin Suebsaeng
January 7, 2015
The Supreme Court eventually stepped in and ended legal segregation in the landmark 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education.
The ‘No Child’ Rewrite Threatens Your Kids’ Future
Jonah Edelman
January 3, 2015
“If you look at the studies, most of them stop after six months, one year, two years,” Brown says.
Why Your New Year’s Diet Will Fail
Carrie Arnold
December 30, 2014
“ADD [Attention Deficit Disorder] is just a euphemistic way of saying, ‘I have limits,’” Brown writes.
Can Self-Help Books Really Make a New You?
Lizzie Crocker
December 29, 2014
In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.
Make ‘The Chew’s’ Carla Hall’s Sticky Toffee Pudding
Carla Hall
December 28, 2014

Historical Examples of brown

He was smoking his big briar and drinking a huge glass of brown beer.
Ballads of a Bohemian
Robert W. Service
Brown them on one side, then turn them and brown them on the other side.
Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2
Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
Then wipe the meat carefully and brown it on all sides in the fat.
Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3
Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
Actually his brown eyes rested on the face of the girl above him.
K
Mary Roberts Rinehart
It was brown as to crust, and flaky and light as to interior.
In the Midst of Alarms
Robert Barr

British Dictionary definitions for brown

brown

noun

any of various colours, such as those of wood or earth, produced by low intensity light in the wavelength range 620–585 nanometres

a dye or pigment producing these colours

brown cloth or clothingdressed in brown

any of numerous mostly reddish-brown butterflies of the genera Maniola, Lasiommata, etc, such as M. jurtina (meadow brown): family Satyridae

adjective

of the colour brown

(of bread) made from a flour that has not been bleached or bolted, such as wheatmeal or wholemeal flour

deeply tanned or sunburnt

verb

to make (esp food as a result of cooking) brown or (esp of food) to become brown

Derived Formsbrownish or browny, adjectivebrownness, noun

Word Origin for brown

Old English brūn; related to Old Norse brūnn, Old High German brūn, Greek phrunos toad, Sanskrit babhru reddish-brown

Brown

noun

Sir Arthur Whitten (ˈwɪt ə n). 1886–1948, British aviator who with J.W. Alcock made the first flight across the Atlantic (1919)

Ford Madox . 1821–93, British painter, associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings include The Last of England (1865) and Work (1865)

George (Alfred), Lord George-Brown. 1914–85, British Labour politician; vice-chairman and deputy leader of the Labour party (1960–70); foreign secretary 1966–68

George Mackay . 1921–96, Scottish poet, novelist, and short-story writer. His works, which include the novels Greenvoe (1972) and Magnus (1973), reflect the history and culture of Orkney

(James) Gordon . born 1951, British Labour politician; Chancellor of the Exchequer (1997–2007); prime minister (2007–10)

Herbert Charles . 1912–2004, US chemist, who worked on the compounds of boron. Nobel prize for chemistry 1979

James . 1933–2006, US soul singer and songwriter, noted for his dynamic stage performances and for his commitment to Black rights

John . 1800–59, US abolitionist leader, hanged after leading an unsuccessful rebellion of slaves at Harper's Ferry, Virginia

Lancelot, called Capability Brown . 1716–83, British landscape gardener

Michael (Stuart). born 1941, US physician: shared the Nobel prize for physiology or medicine (1985) for work on cholesterol

Robert . 1773–1858, Scottish botanist who was the first to observe the Brownian movement in fluids

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for brown

adj.

Old English brun "dark, dusky," developing a definite color sense only 13c., from Proto-Germanic *brunaz (cf. Old Norse brunn, Danish brun, Old Frisian and Old High German brun, Dutch bruin, German braun), from PIE *bher- (3) "shining, brown" (cf. Lithuanian beras "brown"), related to *bheros "dark animal" (cf. beaver, bear (n.), and Greek phrynos "toad," literally "the brown animal").

The Old English word also had a sense of "brightness, shining," preserved only in burnish. The Germanic word was adopted into Romanic (e.g. Middle Latin brunus, Italian and Spanish bruno, French brun). Brown Bess, slang name for old British Army flintlock musket, first recorded 1785.

c.1300, "to become brown," from brown (adj.). From 1560s as "to make brown." Related: Browned; browning.

"brown color," c.1600, from brown (adj.).

brown in Medicine