brownie
noun
(in folklore) a tiny, fanciful, good-natured brown elf who secretly helps at night with household chores.
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brownie
American
[brou-nee]
/ ˈbraʊ ni /
noun
-
brownies
plural
-
(in folklore) a tiny, fanciful, good-natured brown elf who secretly helps at night with household chores.
-
a small, chewy, cakelike cookie, usually made with chocolate and containing nuts.
-
Australian. a bread with currants, baked in a camp oven.
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Sometimes Brownie a member of the junior division of the Girl Scouts or the Girl Guides, being a girl in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade and usually between six and eight years old.
brownie
1
British
/ ˈbraʊnɪ /
noun
-
(in folklore) an elf said to do helpful work at night, esp household chores
-
a small square nutty chocolate cake
-
history a bread made with currants
Brownie
2
British
/ ˈbraʊnɪ /
noun
-
another name for Brownie Guide
-
(formerly) a popular make of simple box camera
Usage
What is a brownie? A brownie is a small, chewy chocolate cake-like dessert that often includes nuts, as in We loved Nana’s brownies so much that we begged her to make them for every party. In British folklore, a brownie is a tiny, brown elf that secretly assists with chores during the night, as in I once heard a fairy tale about a brownie who helped a cobbler clean his workshop. Example: The first thing I learned to bake was brownies, and I still love to bake them.
Synonym Usage
See fairy.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of brownie
First recorded in 1520–30; brown + -ie; in folkloric sense, originally Scots
Vocabulary lists containing brownie
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“China gets a lot of goodwill brownie points throughout the region with what they’re doing with Cuba,” said Jorge Piñón, who studies Cuban energy at the University of Texas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026
At a trade show in February this year, Helene Godin pitched her bakery’s mini-Bundt cakes and brownie bites to some of the biggest supermarket chains in the country.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 25, 2026
“I took an Advil and served birthday cake, brownie, chocolate fudge.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 17, 2026
A brownie that picks a lane and commits: dense and structured, deeply bittersweet and finished with a sharp hit of salt.
From Salon ● Apr. 28, 2026
Jason suddenly looked as though his brownie with peach preserves didn’t taste so good.
From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan
Shake Shack opened its first California location in West Hollywood in March 2016, making a sizzling debut with several exclusive L.A. menu items such as the Roadside Double and Brownie Points.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 3, 2026
We had slogans and passwords, and made the Brownie promise: “I promise to do my best, to do my duty to God and the King, to help other people every day, especially those at home.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 2, 2025
She spent a week on and around that block, with Brownie and Marshmallow and a bag full of flyers about her husband.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 29, 2023
The medics who treated the wounded cow in Oleksandro-Shultyne named her Buryonka, or Brownie.
From New York Times ● Apr. 25, 2023
At the junk shop in town she spotted an old Brownie Starflex sitting in the corner of the front window.
From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng
Her boyfriend got it from BadAsh Bakes, the viral bakery based in Pasadena best known for its cinnamon rolls, cookies, brownies and layer cakes.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2026
"Everything's so uncertain. It's so unfair to be treated as a large business when we're selling a few brownies."
From BBC ● May 8, 2026
In my house, black beans are to brownies as bananas are to banana bread.
From Salon ● May 5, 2026
"There's nothing for the kids, no clubs, no brownies or scouts," she says.
From BBC ● Feb. 25, 2026
Instead, she slammed the brownies down, blubbered, “Well, they’re not!” and stomped out of the house.
From "Crash" by Jerry Spinelli
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
