brown

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Having the colour of chocolate, coffee, or earth

   She has long brown hair.

2. 2
   noun

   The colour of chocolate, coffee, or earth

   The browns and greens in the painting give it a warm, woodsy feel.

3. 3
   verb

   To cook food until its surface turns brown

   Brown the meat in the pan before adding the sauce.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

In Old English brown simply meant “dark”; it acquired its modern color sense in Middle English. The idea of darkness also developed into the sense “gloomy or serious,” found in the 16th-century phrase brown study, “absorbed in one’s thoughts.” In that phrase study meant a state of daydreaming or meditation.

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

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary