brown
See also: Brown
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
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.
cognates
- Dutch bruin
- German braun
- Ancient Greek φρύνη (phrúnē), φρῦνος (phrûnos, “toad”)
- Latin brunneus (“brown”)
- Lithuanian bė́ras (“brown”)
- Sanskrit बभ्रु (babhrú, “reddish-brown”)
- West Frisian brún
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
brown (countable and uncountable, plural browns)
- (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:
- (snooker, countable) One of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of 4 points.
- (uncountable) Black tar heroin.
- (slang, archaic, countable) A copper coin.
- 1883, “The Omnibus”, in London Town[1]:
- "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.
- 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.
- (sometimes capitalised, countable, informal) 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.
- 2005, Kristen A. Myers, Racetalk: Racism Hiding in Plain Sight
- (entomology) Any of various nymphalid butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae (formerly the family Satyridae).
- (entomology) Any of certain species of nymphalid butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae, such as those of the genera Heteronympha and Melanitis.
- (informal) A brown trout (Salmo trutta).
- (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.
- 1928, R. Pigot, Twenty-five Years Big Game Hunting (page 166)
![[1]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:16_London_Town,_page_12.png){kind=link}
Derived termsEdit
DescendantsEdit
TranslationsEdit
colour
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black tar heroin — see black tar
copper coin
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brown-skinned person
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nymphalid butterfliy of subfamily Satyrinae
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Salmo trutta — see brown trout
hunting: mass of birds or animals
AdjectiveEdit
brown (comparative browner or more brown, superlative brownest or most brown)
- Having a brown colour.
- (obsolete) Gloomy.
- (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.
- (US) Latino
- (of Asians) South Asian
- (of East Asians) Southeast Asian
DescendantsEdit
TranslationsEdit
having a brown colour
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VerbEdit
brown (third-person singular simple present browns, present participle browning, simple past and past participle browned)
- (intransitive) To become brown.
- Synonym: (chiefly literary and poetic) embrown
- 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.
- (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, […]
- 1887, Indian Cookery "Local" for Young Housekeepers: Second Edition (page 67)
- (intransitive, transitive) To tan.
- Light-skinned people tend to brown when exposed to the sun.
- (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.
- (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[2], 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.
- (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
TranslationsEdit
to become brown
to cook until brown
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to tan — see tan
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Derived termsEdit
terms derived from "brown"
Related termsEdit
See alsoEdit
| white | gray, grey | black |
| red; crimson | orange; brown | yellow; cream |
| lime, lime green | green | mint |
| cyan; teal | azure, sky blue | blue |
| violet; indigo | magenta; purple | pink |
WelshEdit
EtymologyEdit
PronunciationEdit
AdjectiveEdit
brown (feminine singular brown, plural brown, equative browned, comparative brownach, superlative brownaf)
MutationEdit
| Welsh mutation | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| radical | soft | nasal | aspirate |
| brown | frown | mrown | unchanged |
| Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs. | |||
See alsoEdit
| gwyn | llwyd | du |
| coch; rhudd | oren, melyngoch; brown | melyn; melynwyn |
| gwyrdd leim | gwyrdd | |
| gwyrddlas; glaswyrdd | asur, gwynlas | glas |
| fioled; indigo | majenta; porffor | pinc |