suntan
Americannoun
-
suntans
plural
-
a browning or a brown color of the skin resulting from exposure to sunlight or a sunlamp; tan.
-
Also called mayfair tan, merida. a light to medium yellow-brown.
-
Also called pastel orange. a medium orange color.
verb (used with or without object)
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of suntan
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:
While there are some ingredients in suntan lotions - like oxybenzone - that can cause environmental damage to coral reefs, there is not evidence to suggest it poses a risk to humans, Dr McCann says.
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2025
Marker, who also surfs, plays guitar and rides motorcycles, is 63 going on 16, with silver hair and a skate-park suntan.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 2, 2025
Edgewell Personal Care Co., the maker of Schick blazers and Banana Boat suntan lotion, has trimmed certain varieties of its anti-bacteria wipes Wet Ones, among others.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 12, 2024
“People go into the gift shop early in the trip to buy suntan lotion, a hat, and browse,” he said.
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2023
She hadn't told him that he was prettier than any girl, and that his skin was like sunshine with a suntan.
From "Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell
“They have the best suntans you’ve ever seen in your life,” said Kasen’s mom, Katie Wenzel, 45, who runs a local restaurant and motel.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 27, 2021
The people who lived here before me danced in Bourbon Street clubs; the balcony was for suntans.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 12, 2019
Many officials spent their time in a secure room reading signals-intelligence reports or working on their suntans by the pool.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 2, 2016
Honestly, would you want to be dating someone who can make it through that field of California suntans without even an aesthete’s appreciation?
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2016
It made me happy, but I kept wondering about next spring, about whether khaki, or suntans or whatever the uniform of the season was, had this aura of promise in it.
From "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles
“It wasn’t that I was in the French Riviera getting suntanned with Keith Richards.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2026
NOV 2008: Berlusconi hails Barack Obama as "handsome, young and also suntanned", after he was elected the United States' first Black president.
From Reuters ● Jun. 12, 2023
He is fifty-nine and has a loose-legged stroll, tousled salt-and-pepper hair, and sunken, suntanned cheeks.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 13, 2018
The smiling, suntanned participants joined sessions on team-building and learned how to collectively protect and promote the rights of patients and drug users to humane medical and social treatment, including ST.
From Slate ● May 22, 2017
Especially now, she might have added, after surviving his manly shipboard adventure: He was suntanned and lean muscled, and hummed sea chanteys under his breath in the moonlight....
From "The Interrupted Tale" by Maryrose Wood
At this time of year, a person can go ice fishing and recline, shirtless, by the hole, suntanning from reflecting light.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 18, 2019
But what about addiction to suntanning, bodybuilding, fortune telling, or love?
From Slate ● Aug. 31, 2015
How else to explain such an affinity for one-hour photo developing, instant replay, touch- tone phones and suntanning parlors?
From Time Magazine Archive
"I'm an evangelist against this foolish suntanning habit," says U.C.L.A.
From Time Magazine Archive
The students spent the entire hour speaking in French about suntanning.
From "Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High" by Melba Pattillo Beals
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.
