Word: brown Part of Speech: adj Etymology: Inherited 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 * Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish brun * Ancient Greek φρύνη (phrúnē), φρῦνος (phrûnos, “toad”) * Latin brunneus (“brown”) * Lithuanian bė́ras (“brown”) * Sanskrit बभ्रु (babhrú, “reddish-brown”) * West Frisian brún Pronunciation: /ˈbɹaʊ̯n/, /ˈbɹæʊ̯n/, /ˈbɹaːn/, /bɹuːn/ 1. Having a brown color/colour. Example: But none of those brown dwarfs were speeding along on a trajectory that would carry them out of the galaxy like “runaway” hypervelocity stars observed by astronomers in the last two decades. 2. Gloomy. Labels: obsolete 3. Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin. Labels: US, capitalized, sometimes Example: Reminds me of the time they asked me and a group of other Latino, predominantly Mexican, friends for our passports when we tried to go to their [expletive] party a little over a year ago.[…] The saddest part is that I don’t think they understand why it’s insulting to ask a brown person for a passport. 4. Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin. Labels: US, broadly, capitalized, sometimes 5. Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin. Labels: capitalized, sometimes Example: I think they sort of realized like, oh, we have Aasif who is a Muslim, an American, brown person, you know, who can sit on that fence between cultures and sort of talk about what it is--what this is from the perspective of being an insider and an outsider at the same time.[…] I think there is in the sort of South Asian, you know, psyche, a kind of adoration of Western ideals and culture that was sort of implanted into us by the British, you know, and this idea that everything that is Western is superior and better than what we have and what India--you know, what is true to our own culture. Example: What’s interesting, when you look past all the hysterical bullshit about brown people and trans kids and the imaginary woke mind virus, is that Hanson’s new converts in Farrer and South Australia are angry about the same shit as everyone else, whether that’s a Lebanese-Australian bricklayer in Claymore, an Indian dental nurse in Ipswich, or some lentil-muffin-eating, lumpy-jumper-wearing goat yoga enthusiast in Teal Town. 6. Of or relating to any of various ethnic groups having dark pigmentation of the skin. Labels: capitalized, sometimes Example: I came to deeply embrace anti-racism in slow, sustained increments. To do so, I had to embrace my own identity as a Brown person -- and understand my own complicity in white supremacy.[…] I had grown up in an entire Southeast Asian culture that had largely been groomed, indoctrinated and brainwashed into white-centered thinking over some 450 years of colonization by our Western overlords: Spain for almost 400 years, and then the United States of America for nearly 50 years more. 7. Not green (environmentally irresponsible); anti-green (against environmental protection). Example: Near-synonyms: nongreen, antigreen Example: Tesco and Sainsbury, two of Britain’s biggest retailers, are locked in a fierce battle to prove who is greener. Even BSkyB, the British satellite outpost of the distinctly brown Murdoch empire, has declared itself “carbon-neutral.”