suntan
Americannoun
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suntans
plural
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a browning or a brown color of the skin resulting from exposure to sunlight or a sunlamp; tan.
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Also called mayfair tan, merida. a light to medium yellow-brown.
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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:
She says the current trend to create tan lines by burning in the sun, coupled with false claims that suntan lotion is responsible for the very cancer it's trying to prevent is a "perfect storm".
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
“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
Douglas attributes the love to the fact that it “tastes like real ingredients that your body recognizes and resonates with, rather than many that might be cheaper but often taste like Coppertone suntan lotion smells.”
From Seattle Times ● May 3, 2023
They were not very bellicose-looking; their columns were straggling, their suntan uniforms had gotten rumpled in the train, and they were singing Roll Out the Barrel.
From "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles
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
The door swung open and there stood two girls, centre-parted blonde hair, fading suntans, sandals and painted toenails, bare arms, sweet expectant smiles, unbearably pretty.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 10, 2012
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
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
Alas, it is in fact Dame Joan’s husband Percy, the famous Percy, who is suntanned, jolly and very amused that I have mistaken him for the PR guy.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 2, 2018
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
His suntanned face creased with his big smile of wonder.
From "Frightful's Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
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
"I'm an evangelist against this foolish suntanning habit," says U.C.L.A.
From Time Magazine Archive
How else to explain such an affinity for one-hour photo developing, instant replay, touch- tone phones and suntanning parlors?
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.
