tawny
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: tôʹnē
ipa: /ˈtɔːni/
ipa: /ˈtɔni/
ipa: /ˈtɑ-/
rhymes: -ɔːni
Forms: form: tawnier
form: tawniest
form: tawney
Etymology: The adjective is derived from Middle English tauni, tawne (“having a brownish-orange colour”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman taune, tawné, and Old French tané, tanné, tanney (“of a tan colour”), an adjective use of the past participle of taner (“to turn hide into leather, tan”), from tan (“pulped oak bark used to tan leather, tanbark”), ultimately from Proto-Celtic *tannos (“green oak”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *(s)dʰnwos, *(s)dʰonu (“fir”).
The -aw- spelling (also -au- in Middle English) seems to have been due to the pronunciation of Old French tané.
The verb is derived from the adjective.
Cognates
* Breton tann
* Medieval Latin tannāre (“to dye a tawny color; to tan”)
* Old Irish caerthann (“rowan”)
Senses: examples: text: And if any of your nation attempte once to ſtoppe me in my iorney now towards Calais, […] I in my defence ſhall colour and make red your tawny ground with the effuſion of chriſtian bloud: […]
ref: 1577, Raphaell Holinshed, “King Henrie the Fifth”, in The Laste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume II, London: […] for Iohn Hunne, →OCLC, page 1077, column 2:
text: The VVooſell cock, ſo blacke of hevve, / VVith Orange tavvny bill, / The Throſtle, vvith his note ſo true, / The VVren, vvith little quill.
ref: c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, […], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
text: Come, vve muſt haue you turne Fiddler againe, ſlaue, 'get a Baſe Violin at your backe, and march in a Tavvnie Coate, vvith one ſleeue, to Gooſe-faire, and then you'll knovve vs; […]
ref: 1601, Ben Jonson, Poetaster or The Arraignment: […], London: […] [R. Bradock] for M[atthew] L[ownes] […], published 1602, →OCLC, Act III, scene iv:
text: To the Queen he gave […] a ſmall Box full of large Needles; then he gave her ſome courſe brovvn Thread, and ſhovv'd her hovv to thred the Needle and ſovv any Thing together vvith the Thread; all vvhich ſhe admired exceedingly, and call'd her Tavvny Maids of Honour about her, that they might learn alſo.
ref: 1725, [Daniel Defoe], “Part I”, in A New Voyage Round the World, by a Course Never Sailed before. […], London: […] A[rthur] Bettesworth, […]; and W. Mears, […], →OCLC, page 155:
text: [T]he vvatch-dogs and aſſembled ſvvains / Have driv'n a tavvny lion from the ſtalls, […]
ref: 1791, Homer, “[The Iliad.] Book XI.”, in W[illiam] Cowper, transl., The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume I, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 289, lines 661–662:
text: [T]he head waiter inquired with respectful solicitude whether that port, being a light and tawny wine, was suited to his taste, or whether he would wish to try a fruity port with greater body.
ref: 1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, “Will be Seen in the Long Run, if Not in the Short One, to Concern Mr. Pinch and Others, Nearly. […]”, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC, pages 150–151:
text: [P]erhaps they metamorphose themselves into a tawny squirrel that scampers away and mocks you from the topmost bough.
ref: 1859, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “In the Wood”, in Adam Bede […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book first, page 240:
text: There were the tawny rocks, like lions couchant, defying the ocean, whose waves incessantly dashed against and scoured them with vast quantities of gravel.
ref: 1865, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “The Shipwreck”, in [Sophia Thoreau; William Ellery Channing], editors, Cape Cod, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 14:
text: He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon; / And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon, / When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor, / A red-coat troop came marching— / Marching—marching— / King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.
ref: 1906 August, Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, in Poems, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 2, stanza I, pages 48–49:
text: They fell a-twittering among themselves once more, and this time their intoxicating babble was of violet seas, tawny sands, and lizard-haunted walls.
ref: 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, “Wayfarers All”, in The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 196:
text: I never thought I'd meet a girl like you / With auburn hair and tawny eyes
ref: 1982 March, Frank Maudsley, Paul Reynolds, Ali Score, Mike Score, “I Ran (So Far Away)”, in A Flock of Seagulls, performed by A Flock of Seagulls:
text: Dio Cassius, writing more than one hundred years after the event, described Boudicca as 'very tall, in appearance most terrifying … the glance of her eye most fierce, her voice harsh … a great mass of the tawniest hair fell to her hips'.
ref: 2001, John Cannon, Anne Hargreaves, “Romano-British Rulers”, in The Kings & Queens of Britain, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 13:
text: ANTILLEAN NIGHTHAWK Chordeiles gundlachii […] Somewhat tawnier and smaller than Common Nighthawk, but readily distinguished from it only by call.
ref: 2019, Roger Tory Peterson, Michael DiGiorgio, Paul Lehman, Peter Pyle, Larry Rosche, “Owls and Nightjars”, in Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America (Peterson Field Guides), 2nd edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 230:
synonyms: word: fulvid
word: fulvous
word: olivaster
word: subfuscous
word: swart
word: swartish
word: swarty
word: brownish
word: browny
word: brunneous
word: brunnescent
glosses: Of a light brown to brownish orange colour; orangey brown tinged with gold.
Derived terms: tawnily
tawniness
tawny-breasted tinamou
tawny coster
tawny eagle
tawny frogmouth
tawny owl
tawny pipit
tawny port
Related terms: tan
tawn
fulvescent
rufofulvous