brown

UK/ˈbɹaʊ̯n/US/ˈbɹaʊ̯n/

nounA13 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #639 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: browns, browning

Brown is the colour of coffee, wet earth, chocolate and most bears. Toast, cardboard, an old penny, the water in a puddle after rain.

Brown is a noun, an adjective and a verb. In the kitchen you brown the onions or brown the meat first, which means cooking the outside until it changes colour and tastes richer. Brown also labels the less refined version of a food: brown bread and brown rice keep more of the whole grain than their white versions, and brown sugar keeps some of its dark syrup. It describes hair, eyes and skin, and skin can go brown in the sun. Then there are the fixed pairs: brown paper, a brown envelope, brown ale, and browned off, which is an old British way of saying thoroughly fed up.

Definitions of brown

1nounbrownThe colour of coffee, wood and soil.A1
“She painted the door a dark brown.”
- Said"I'd go for the brown, myself. It hides the mud."
- WrittenThe river ran brown for a week after the storm, thick with soil from the hills.
- UsedChoose browns and greens for a room that should feel calm.
- ContrastBrown, not black. Black is the darkest colour of all; brown is warmer, the colour of coffee, wood and earth. black →
Patterna shade of brown · dark / light / golden brown · brown + noun (bread, sugar, eyes) · go / turn brown
2adjectivecolourHaving that colour.A1
“He was wearing brown boots and no socks.”
3verbcookTo cook food, such as meat or onions, until the outside changes colour and darkens.B2
“Brown the chicken on both sides before you add the stock.”
- Said"Don't stir the mince yet — let it brown first."
- WrittenThe onions were browning slowly in the pan, and the whole house smelled of them.
- UsedBrown the meat in small batches so it does not steam.
- ContrastBrown, not burn. Browned food is dark and tasty; burnt food is black and bitter. burn →
- SimplyCook it until the outside is brown. That is browning it.
Patternbrown + noun (meat, onions, butter) · brown sth on both sides · let it brown

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

Remember it

brOWN → look DOWN at the earth

Look down at the earth, the wood of the table, your coffee: brown. Meat left in a hot pan goes brown too, and that is browning it.

hooks ontodown

Phrases it lives in

browned off — fed up and thoroughly tired of something

Also practised as

verbTo cook food, such as meat or onions, until the outside changes colour and darkens.

Where it comes from

Old English brūn meant brown, and also dark or dusky, so it was a word about shade as much as colour. It runs back through Proto-West Germanic and Proto-Germanic *brūnaz to a Proto-Indo-European root *bʰerH-. The bear called Bruin in old European stories is the same word wearing a different coat: an animal named simply the brown one.

Middle English
broun
English, today
brown

From Middle English broun. Middle English broun, from Old English brūn (“brown; dark; dusky”), from Proto-West Germanic brūn, from Proto-Germanic brūnaz, from Proto-Indo-European bʰerH-. a doublet of bruin. 2

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Colors, Shapes & Numbers

Practise this word

brown in the wild

The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is a large bear native to Eurasia and North America.
Brown bear
The brown bear is a sexually dimorphic species, as adult males are larger and more compactly built than females.
Brown bear
The "brown" in brown dwarf was meant to name a color between red and black.
Brown dwarf
Consumer electronics, often referred to as brown goods, include items like TVs and computers.
Home appliance
Browns are usually described as light or dark, reddish, yellowish, or gray-brown.
Shades of brown

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

Definitions of brown

1nounbrownThe colour of coffee, wood and soil.A1

“She painted the door a dark brown.”

Said"I'd go for the brown, myself. It hides the mud."
WrittenThe river ran brown for a week after the storm, thick with soil from the hills.
UsedChoose browns and greens for a room that should feel calm.
ContrastBrown, not black. Black is the darkest colour of all; brown is warmer, the colour of coffee, wood and earth. black →

Patterna shade of brown · dark / light / golden brown · brown + noun (bread, sugar, eyes) · go / turn brown

2adjectivecolourHaving that colour.A1

“He was wearing brown boots and no socks.”

3verbcookTo cook food, such as meat or onions, until the outside changes colour and darkens.B2

“Brown the chicken on both sides before you add the stock.”

Said"Don't stir the mince yet — let it brown first."
WrittenThe onions were browning slowly in the pan, and the whole house smelled of them.
UsedBrown the meat in small batches so it does not steam.
ContrastBrown, not burn. Browned food is dark and tasty; burnt food is black and bitter. burn →
SimplyCook it until the outside is brown. That is browning it.

Patternbrown + noun (meat, onions, butter) · brown sth on both sides · let it brown

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.