brown
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /bɹaʊn/
ipa: /bɹuːn/
rhymes: -aʊn
Forms: form: browns
form: broon
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
Senses: examples: text: The browns and greens in this painting give it a nice woodsy feel.
text: He wore brown jeans for his birthday.
glosses: A colour like that of chocolate or coffee.
topics: ball-games
games
hobbies
lifestyle
snooker
sports
glosses: One of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of 4 points.
glosses: Black tar heroin.
examples: text: “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.”
ref: 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861:
text: I know there are many persons — some who are themselves poor — who 'never turn a beggar from their door,' but always give them a few browns (halfpence) or some scran (broken victuals).
ref: 1853, Charles John Chetwynd Talbot, Meliora, Or, Better Times to Come, page 247:
text: "We've not had any breakfast,—won't you toss us down a brown?"—
That's what they call a penny in the streets of London Town.
ref: 1883, “The Omnibus”, in London Town:
glosses: A copper coin.
examples: text: […] browns are the soberest, bays are the worst tempered, and chestnuts are the most foolish.
ref: 1877, George Nevile, Horses and Riding, page 105:
glosses: A brown horse or other animal.
examples: text: Many browns and blacks are immigrants — some of whom have not yet become naturalized citizens of the United States.
ref: 2005, Kristen A. Myers, Racetalk: Racism Hiding in Plain Sight:
text: For example, a Brown Asian Caucus emerged at the inaugural National Conference on Asian American Mental Health in 1972 – where Filipinos were joined by Pacific Islanders who also felt marginalized as part of the Asian American/ Pacific Islander (AAPI) umbrella group.
ref: 2020, Kevin L. Nadal, The Brown Asian American Movement: Advocating for South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Filipino American Communities:
glosses: 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.
topics: biology
entomology
natural-sciences
glosses: Any of various nymphalid butterflies of subfamily Satyrinae (formerly the family Satyridae), such as those of the genera Heteronympha and Melanitis.
glosses: A brown trout (Salmo trutta).
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1928, R. Pigot, Twenty-five Years Big Game Hunting, page 166:
text: My anger mounted at this, I opened the courtyard door and raised my musket to fire into the brown; I had loaded it with small shot, and if it had gone off that would have been the death of us and the ruin of all of us in the house.
ref: 1979, Kevin Andrews, Athens Alive, page 223:
topics: hobbies
hunting
lifestyle
glosses: A mass of birds or animals that may be indiscriminately fired at.
raw_tags: as "the brown"