brown

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See also: Brown

English[edit]

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English broun, from Old English brūn (“brown; dark; dusky”), from Proto-Germanic *brūnaz (compare West Frisian brún, Dutch bruin, German braun), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰruHn- (compare Ancient Greek φρύνη (phrúnē), φρῦνος (phrûnos, “toad”); Latin brunneus (“brown”)), enlargement of *bʰrew- (“boil; brew”) (compare Lithuanian bė́ras (“brown”), Sanskrit बभ्रु (babhrú, “reddish-brown”)).

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /bɹaʊn/
  • Audio (US)
    		(file)
  • Audio (UK)
    		(file)
  • Rhymes: -aʊn

Noun[edit]

brown (countable and uncountable, plural browns)

  1. (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 colour:  
  2. (snooker, countable) One of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of 4 points.
  3. (uncountable) Black tar heroin.
  4. (sometimes capitalised, countable) A person of Middle Eastern, Latino or South Asian descent; a brown-skinned person; someone of mulatto or biracial appearance.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Adjective[edit]

brown (comparative browner or more brown, superlative brownest or most brown)

  1. Having a brown colour.
    Antonym: nonbrown
  2. (obsolete) Gloomy.
  3. (sometimes capitalized) Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin.

Descendants[edit]

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

brown (third-person singular simple present browns, present participle browning, simple past and past participle browned)

  1. (intransitive) To become brown.
    Fry the onions until they brown.
  2. (cooking, transitive) To cook something until it becomes brown.
    Brown the onions in a large frying pan.
  3. (intransitive, transitive) To tan.
    Light-skinned people tend to brown when exposed to the sun.
  4. (transitive) To make brown or dusky.
    • 1807, Joel Barlow, The Columbiad:
      A trembling twilight o'er the welkin moves, / Browns the dim void and darkens deep the groves.
  5. (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[1], 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.
  6. (demography, transitive, intransitive, slang, ethnic slur, usually derogatory, offensive) To turn progressively more Middle Eastern, Hispanic or Latino, in the context of the population of a geographic region.
    the browning of America

Translations[edit]

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.
Translations to be checked

Derived terms[edit]

terms derived from "brown"

Related terms[edit]

See also[edit]

Colors in English · colors, colours (layout · text)
     white      gray, grey      black
             red ; crimson              orange ; brown              yellow ; cream
             lime              green              mint
             cyan ; teal              azure, sky blue              blue
             violet ; indigo              magenta ; purple              pink

Welsh[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English brown.

Pronunciation[edit]

Adjective[edit]

brown (feminine singular brown, plural brown)

  1. brown

Mutation[edit]

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 also[edit]

Colors in Welsh · lliwiau (layout · text)
     gwyn      llwyd      du
             coch ; rhudd              oren, melyngoch ; brown              melyn ; melynwyn
             gwyrdd leim              gwyrdd             
             gwyrddlas ; glaswyrdd              asur, gwynlas              glas
             fioled ; indigo              majenta ; porffor              pinc
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