brune

See also: Brune, bruñe, and brůně

English

Etymology

From French brune.

Adjective

brune (not comparable)

1. (uncommon) Brunette.
   • 1867 January, Daisy Ventnor [pseudonym; Jeanie Gould], “‘Only a Private’”, in Peterson’s Magazine, volume LI, number 1, Philadelphia, Pa., page 67, column 1:

     By-the-way, we haven’t yet described our favorite Nettie. We will leave details to the reader’s imagination, and only say that she was neither blonde or brune, but a dangerous mixture of both, and able to wear pink or blue with impunity, and look bewitching in either.

   • 1873, W[illiam] C[owper] Prime, “Sunday Morning and Evening”, in I Go A-Fishing, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, page 100:

     When I read of Helen and Cleopatra and Lucretia, and all the beauties of old times, it was always with the notion that each one, blonde or brune, must have looked like Katie Stuart.

   • 1877 April 14, “Edged Tools”, in Family Herald: A Domestic Magazine of Useful Information and Amusement, volume XXXVIII, number 1773, chapter XXV, page 378, column 1:

     “[…] Lord Quallinghame, how do you think I should look as Cleopatra? Only fancy what gorgeous colouring you could get out of such a costume! Was Cleopatra blonde or brune, by the way? Not that it matters”—[…]

   • 1884 November, “Dress Materials”, in The Delineator: A Monthly Magazine, Illustrating Metropolitan Fashions, volume XXIV, number 5, London, New York, N.Y.: The Butterick Publishing Co., Limited, pages 373–374:

     The worker with “silken thread and needle fine,” the lover of deep rich colors, the one who adores the glowing tone of the scarlets and yellows, the golden browns and the emerald greens, the woman who can spend all the golden ducats she may wish and still have plenty left, as well as she who must think of how she can arrange so that all of last season’s stuffs can be utilized and everything look as it should, each woman, rich or poor, blonde or brune, old or young, ought surely be satisfied with the store of delights offered to her by la Mode this year. […] Seal and mode are seen well developed in a walking costume to be worn by a pretty woman, who is neither blonde or brune, but has dark brown hair, blue eyes and a clear complexion.

   • 1894 December, Calista Halsey Patchin, “Marechal Niel. Romance of a Christmas Ball.”, in The Midland Monthly, volume II, number 6, page 450, column 1:

     Not that Marie had ever starred in any such tragedy. She belonged to neither the one sort of Van Steynes nor the other. She was neither blonde nor brune. A dash of romance in her temperament was counterbalanced by a saving sense of the ridiculous, that kept her from ever quite making a fool of herself.

   • 1896 December, Frederic Reddall, “American Woman Harpists”, in Godey’s Magazine, volume CXXXIII, number 798, New York, N.Y.: The Godey Company, page 567, column 1:

     The pose is necessarily graceful; the costume may be, and often is, so devised as to heighten the effect. Miss Morgan and Miss Boxall are as famous for this as for their playing. Whether the player be blonde or brune, the golden framework of the instrument is sure to blend; while the flashing ivory of the harpist’s arms, sweeping back and forth against the glistening strings, keeps time to the delicate harmonies woven by her fingers.

   • 1896 December, Alfred Slade, “[The Editor’s Scrap-Book.] My Poetry and the Police.”, in The Windsor Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly for Men and Women, volume V, London: Ward, Lock & Company, […], published 1897, page 161, column 2:

     “[…] It is from Lucille, a charming girl, with a most fascinating disregard for the first elements of orthography. We quarrelled, alas! six months ago.” / “Blonde or brune?” anxiously inquired the man of law. / “Blonde, of course,” I replied firmly—I am proud of my taste.

   • 1900 June, Elmore Elliott Peake, “The Captain of the ‘Aphrodite’”, in George Newnes, editor, The Strand Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, volume XIX, number 114, London: George Newnes, Ltd., […], page 660, column 2:

     I had never seen you then, not even your picture. I didn’t know whether you were tall or short, blonde or brune.

   • 1907 June, George V[ere] Hobart, Ikey’s Letters to His Father, New York, N.Y.: G. W. Dillingham Company, page 44:

     After the show had trouped I met an awfully nice girl-⁠-she was neither blonde nor brune, rather betwixt and between, but a corking looker.

   • 1908 November, Ednah Aiken, “Bill’s Wife”, in The Pacific Monthly, volume XX, number 5, Portland, Ore.: The Pacific Monthly Company, page 539, column 1:

     “She’s a blonde,” decided de Fougueres. He was thinking of Eugenie, and Jeffries answered the unspoken words. / “Blonde or brune, she can keep a man true; and two years in the quarter, and Eugenie Latour! […]”

   • 1910, “Illusion”, in The Harvard Lampoon, page 183, column 2:

     O’ER the footlights catch her glance, / Is she not most wondrous fair? / Mayhap blonde, or brune perchance? / Best of all—peroxide hair, / Then the belladonna stare.

   • 1912 October, Louis Joseph Vance, “Wilful Missing”, in The Destroying Angel, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, page 61:

     Whitaker’s thin brown hand gesticulated vaguely. “She was tall, slender, pale, at the awkward age . . .” / “Blonde or brune?” / “I swear I don’t know. She wore one of those funny knitted caps, tight down over her hair, all the time.”

   • 1919, The Independent, page 3:

     Of course the eternal question is, who will he be interested in? Does he like ’em tall or short, or blonde or brune?

   • 1919, The Sketch, page 346, column 1:

     We discussed solemnly whether the Queen should be blonde or brune. But though there is much to be said in favour of the dark-haired beauty, it was really settled long ago that the true type of Parisienne beauty is fair.

   • 1921, Inez Haynes Irwin, chapter III, in Out of the Air, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, page 94:

     The delicate features were mignonne, except for the delicious, warm, lusciously cut mouth— Was she blonde or brune? he wondered. She died at forty-five. To David Lindsay at twenty-two, forty-five had seemed a respectable old age. To David Lindsay at twentyeight, it seemed almost young. She was dead, of course, when he began to read her. Oh, if he could only have met her!

   • 1922, Burton E[gbert] Stevenson, “The Countess Rémond”, in The Kingmakers, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, page 3:

     For there was nothing madonna-like about the women. They differed in being blonde or brune, of various contours, and of all ages, but some subtle quality of spirit bound them together in a common sisterhood.

   • 1936 November, Robert Palfrey Utter, Gwendolyn Bridges Needham, “The Lass with the Delicate Air”, in Pamela’s Daughters, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, pages 179 and 194:

     The rest is an attempt at persuasion. Richardson tells us scarcely so much, yet he persuades us so much the more. Is Clarissa blonde or brune? She is snow white and rose red, has “shining” hair, and wears blue and silver. Most of us would image a blonde, but black hair may shine, and set off a skin of lily and driven snow. […] If Athena was wise, she was a fool to compete, for who cares whether a learned lady is blonde or brune? One of the things every woman knows is that if she has charm it matters little what else she has, and if she hasn’t, nothing else will help.

Noun

brune (plural brunes)

1. (uncommon) A brunette.
   • 1828 September 22, “Female Dress”, in The Opera Glass. Devoted to the Fine Arts, Literature, and the Drama., volume I, number 3, page 18, column 1:

     This conclusion is dangerous in the extreme; for fashion, and the love of display are two of the most dangerous enemies to woman’s empire, By their imperious laws, the blond, and the brune, the blooming girl, the finished woman, and the widow un peu passee, are all compelled to wear the same livery, whether it be becoming or not.

   • 1861, Ouida [pseudonym; Maria Louise Ramé], “Our Corps’ Friends and Foes; or, How Randolph Trapped a Sunbeam, and I Turned a Medium”, in Bentley’s Miscellany, volume XLIX, London: Chapman and Hall, […], section II (How Sunshine, Pearl, and Rosebud Shot at Bull’s-Eyes and Hit Other Marks), page 80:

     Yes, I like Sunshine; it’s such fun to hear her talk. And you seem to like that dark-eyed sister of hers—eh, old boy? Well, she’s a very handsome girl, I grant you, but she’s too stately for me; besides, I don’t care for your brunes; tall women haven’t, generally, much fun in them.

   • 1865, Ouida [pseudonym; Maria Louise Ramé], Strathmore: A Romance […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, pages 40–41, 99, 103, and 201:

     “[…] I am curious really to know how you get up the steam fresh every time; now with a duchess, and now with a dairymaid, now with a blonde, and now with a brune!” […] he passed him in the vestibule, and went on to chat with the Comtesse de Chantal, a bewitching little brune, who had confided to him the colour of her adorable rose domino, and would quickly have been recognised without any other guide than her bright marmoset eyes. […] the Princess was a brune, an olive-cheeked daughter of Sardinia, and the delicate chin of the mask, which (save the rose lips) was all he could see of his clairvoyante unknown, was white as the skin of the fairest blonde. […] A bright-eyed brune is better than a brush any day, and two good things can’t spoil one another.

   • 1877 May 1, “Royal Poplin”, in Myra’s Journal of Dress and Needlework, volume III, number 5, London: Goubaud & Son […]:

     This most superior-looking fabric does not possess one deterrent quality. By many ladies who prefer plain to fancy materials this will be much admired, and the colourings are all of those soft undecided tones, which are so eminently becoming to either blonde or brune.

   • 1896, Mrs. Frank Leslie [i.e., Miriam Leslie], “Angels Have Blonde Hair, but There Are Many Brunettes. The Two Types of Beauty.”, in Are We All Deceivers? The Lover’s Blue Book, London, New York, N.Y.: F[rank] Tennyson Neely, page 257:

     And after all, we each one of us have personal experiences and personal preferences which bias our judgment in this respect; we love this man or that woman, and for the time we believe that just that style of beauty is the ideal we have always held. We haven’t, and by and by we shall smile at our own delusion and flatly contradict our fatuous theories; but while it lasts, and even perhaps in memory, we shall cling to the admiration of blonde or brune in general, because once in particular we loved a blonde or a brune. / Another point to be considered nowadays, however, is, what is her natural coloring? / For so many persons copy Queen Elizabeth, who had 100 wigs as well as 100 gowns, and wore whatever style of complexion she chose!

   • 1906, Truth, page 1278, column 1:

     In the same lovely colour is a vine-leaf berthe mingled with copper-pink sequins; and last, though not least, is an inlaid bolero, pure white and palest green, which would be most becoming to either blonde or brune.

   • 1907 June, George V[ere] Hobart, Ikey’s Letters to His Father, New York, N.Y.: G. W. Dillingham Company, page 53:

     Oh! scold me, Pop, scold me and make me behave if ever again I bow the knee to a blonde or brune in Roch.

   • 1936 November, Robert Palfrey Utter, Gwendolyn Bridges Needham, Pamela’s Daughters, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, pages 194, 204, 206, (The Lass with the Delicate Air) and 355 (Some Don’t):

     The competing goddesses were three, “golden” Aphrodite, “ox-eyed” Hera, and Athena, who was the very brain of Zeus until she outgrew her quarters. If Aphrodite deserves her epithet, she was a blonde. If Hera was ox-eyed, she was a brune (unless she was peroxide), for who ever heard of a blue-eyed ox? […] Paris may have been a shepherd, but he was the first gentleman, for with a blonde, a brune and a bluestocking come to judgment, he preferred the blonde. […] In The Broken Wedding Ring of Bertha M. Clay, the elder sister, Leah, is a brune, […] This leaves us free to infer that if she doesn’t show it so often as the brune, it is merely because she doesn’t have to. She has the delicate air by gift of nature, and if because of it we endow her not only with all worldly goods but all the graces of heaven, we do so at our own risk, not by the mandate of God. […] A check of many working-girl novels of the nineteenth century indicates that in every hundred heroines we have eighty blondes, ten brunes, and ten red-heads.

References

• “brune, adj. and n.²”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.</ref>

Corsican

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbrune/
• Hyphenation: bru‧ne

Adjective

brune

1. feminine plural of brunu

References

• “brunu” in INFCOR: Banca di dati di a lingua corsa

Danish

Verb

brune (imperative brun, infinitive at brune, present tense bruner, past tense brunede, perfect tense brunet)

1. to brown

Conjugation

Conjugation of brune

	Active	Passive
Infinitive	brune	brunes
Present tense	bruner	brunes
Past tense	brunede	brunedes
Imperative	brun	-
Participle
Present	brunende
Past	brunet
Gerund	brunen

References

• “brune” in Den Danske Ordbog

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bʁyn/

• Audio

  (file)

Adjective

brune

1. feminine singular of brun

Noun

brune f (plural brunes)

1. brunette (woman with brown hair)

Further reading

• “brune”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• Ruben

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbru.ne/
• Rhymes: -une
• Hyphenation: brù‧ne

Adjective

brune

1. feminine plural of bruno

Noun

brune f

1. plural of bruna

Anagrams

• Ruben

Norwegian Bokmål

Adjective

brune

1. definite singular of brun
2. plural of brun

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

brune (present tense brunar, past tense bruna, past participle bruna, passive infinitive brunast, present participle brunande, imperative brune/brun)

1. Alternative form of bruna

Adjective

brune

1. definite singular of brun
2. plural of brun

Portuguese

Verb

brune

1. inflection of brunir:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbru.ne/

Adjective

brune

1. nominative/accusative feminine/neuter plural of brun

Swedish

Adjective

brune

1. definite natural masculine singular of brun

Anagrams

• Ruben, buren