brown

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to make brown in color

   The draught browned the leaves on the trees in the yard.

2. 2
   verb

   to fry in a pan until it changes color

   They browned the meat in the pan.

3. 3
   noun

   A colour like that of chocolate or coffee.

   The browns and greens in this painting give it a nice woodsy feel.

4. 4
   noun

   A copper coin.

   “To save a journey up the town, / A razor lent here for a brown: / But if you think the price too high, / I beg you won’t the razor try.”

5. 5
   noun

   A brown horse or other animal.

   […] browns are the soberest, bays are the worst tempered, and chestnuts are the most foolish.

6. 6
   noun

   A person of mostly Latin American (or Latino), Middle Eastern/North African, South Asian, and sometimes Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, or rarely Native American descent; a brown-skinned person; someone of mulatto, or biracial appearance.

   Many browns and blacks are immigrants — some of whom have not yet become naturalized citizens of the United States.

7. 7
   noun

   A mass of birds or animals that may be indiscriminately fired at.

   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.

8. 8
   adj

   Having a brown colour.

   But none of those brown dwarfs were speeding along on a trajectory that would carry them out of the galaxy like “runaway” hypervelocity stars observed by astronomers in the last two decades.

Etymology

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